Tag Archives: Pound Ridge Luxury Real Estate

Old-world German architecture and a modern-day film spur a Hill Country farmhouse’s warm style | Pound Ridge Homes

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It’s no surprise these homeowners have comfortably nestled into their guesthouse, as one major inspiration for the home was the cozy English cottage Kate Winslet’s character owned in The Holiday. Their plan was to build the guesthouse in the Texas Hill Country, retire, move down from Lubbock, then complete construction on the main house. Surrounded by over 20 acres full of oaks and wildlife, they enjoyed the guesthouse so much that they put off the construction for a few years, and they secretly fear they won’t love the main house as much. As we take a tour through this charming home, you’ll understand why.
Houzz at a Glance Who lives here: A retired couple Location: Fredericksburg, Texas Size: About 1,000 square feet; 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom

Austin Pitner, owner of Bonterra Building & Design, worked with the homeowners’ large inspiration file full of homes (most over a hundred years old) and with a floor plan and elevations from architect David Rowland. Bonterra completed all of the construction and designed all of the interior details and finishes, such as the timber frame beams, custom fireplace, doors and cabinetry.
The home has a regional feel, which is German influenced and rural (Fredericksburg was originally settled by German immigrants). The standing-seam metal roof is preweathered Galvalume. The stone is chopped white limestone, indigenous to the area.
The porch floor is part of the concrete foundation; the beams are western red cedar.
“No one is around for miles, so this outdoor shower is completely private and great for hot Texas days,” Pitner says. The stones around the house are crushed local granite.
The retaining wall is made of stones found onsite while digging holes for the septic tanks. “When you dig around here, you never know what you’re going to find,” Pitner says. They hit upon these perfect layers of rock.
“When they came out of the ground, they were dark gray and ugly; we stacked them and wondered what to do with them,” he says. During the time they mulled it over, several rainstorms hit, and the rock lightened to a beautiful color. They decided to use it for the wall. “You couldn’t shop for anything better than these stones,” he says.
The front door is mahogany planks with metal straps. The metal details, wood beams and lanterns lend an old-world European farm feel.
“We wanted the interiors to be rough but clean,” Pitner says. He used timber-frame construction throughout. The beams are hewn Douglas fir, hand notched for corner support. They avoided using molding to create the feeling of a monolithic, old blocked house. While the stones and beams lend the look of an old European farmhouse, the stained concrete floors, lack of moldings and simple floating kitchen shelves mix in contemporary touches.
Pitner advises hiring a professional to stain concrete floors; he was very impressed with the way the pros were able to match the floors to tones in the beams.
The kitchen has an indigenous feel, like it rose naturally right out of the land. The countertops are limestone, and the cabinets are alder.
One of the homeowners enjoys feeding the foxes and their babies who come to visit through the Dutch door.
Shaws Farmhouse Sink: Rohl

Maintain market relevance by writing ‘timeless,’ hyperlocal posts | Pound Ridge NY Realtor

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We all know that having posts that are timeless is important. You know the ones that people will find year after year and are still relevant, regardless of the topic.

You do know that, right? Well, now you do, if you didn’t already.

There are a number of reasons for doing timeless posts. Here are a few:

  1. They are relevant and informative for years if written appropriately.
  2. They continue to get views over the years and potentially drive more traffic to your website.
  3. They show you are a knowledgeable real estate professional in the area and on that topic.
  4. You can use them in lots of ways.

Timeless posts can be about a variety of topics: the larger community (Carlsbad); neighborhoods (La Costa); subdivisions or master-planned communities (Bressi Ranch); condo communities (Sanderling); and community amenities including parks, tourist attractions and recreation, and to some extent shopping and dining. Those places do go out of business on occasion, so they may not truly be timeless.

Community and similar localism posts tend to get a lot of traffic. I have a bunch with more than 15,000 clicks since they were first written

– See more at: http://www.inman.com/next/maintain-market-relevance-by-writing-timeless-hyperlocal-posts/?utm_source=20131213&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyheadlinesam#sthash.BdrHAetU.dpuf

Furnace check-up or tune-up is much like a visit to the doctor | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Heating & Cooling

Nobody wants to think about a  heating system when it’s still warm and sunny outside, but winter is never that  far away, and servicing a heating system now will ensure that the heat  will click on when you want it to.

Furnace Check-up A furnace check-up or furnace repair is much like a visit  to the doctor or taking your car to a mechanic. However, specifically in the  case of your home, a furnace check-up consists of the following steps:

  • Inspect thermostat for proper operation.
  • Inspect filter and change or clean as needed.
  • Check all electrical components and controls.
  • Oil motors as needed.
  • Inspect heat exchanger for possible cracks. A crack in the heat exchanger  will introduce carbon monoxide into the living space.
  • Check air flow. If diminished, it may be necessary to clean the evaporator  coil.
  • Check air fuel mixture, where appropriate.Furnace Maintenance While having your furnace tuned and checked  each year before the cold weather is wise practice, there are also a few things  you can do to assure that your furnace is operating properly, safely, and to its  fullest capacity.
  • The very first thing to check before turning on your unit is to make sure  nothing flammable has been stored next to the furnace over the summer. Many people have set their weed eaters, lawnmowers, and gas cans against their furnace in the garage. This is just asking for a fire or an explosion.
  • Run your heater for a few minutes before you actually need it. Waiting  until the first cold morning to discover it isn’t working will land you at the bottom of a waiting list before a heating and air specialist can come to fix it. If that does happen, call a furnace repair service.
  • Change the filters regularly. Dirty filters restrict air flow, reducing  efficiency and worst case, can cause the heat exchanger to overheat. Disposable  fiberglass filters should be replaced.
  • Electrostatic or electronic filters need to be washed regularly.
  • Be sure all access panels are secure, with all the screws in place.
  • Be sure the thermostat is set in the heating mode. Just setting the dial  above room temperature will not activate the heat if still set in the air  conditioning mode to discard any furnace maintenance is need.Things You Should Know About Your Furnace Many homeowners find that  when they turn their furnace on for the first time that it emits a noxious  smell. This is not Carbon Monoxide. Carbon Monoxide is odorless, so you wouldn’t  be able to smell it even if it was. What is happening here is that dust has  settled on the heat exchanger over the summer and turning on the unit for the  first time is just burning off the dust. Be sure to open some windows to dispel  the odor quickly.

Housing, the next train wreck for Obama? | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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As the Obama administration continues to absorb body blows over its implementation of the Affordable Care Act, another potential crisis looms ever-larger, according to Barron’s: housing.

By trying to protect consumers from the excesses of the run-up during the 2004-2006 period, the administration is set to deliver a gut punch to mortgage markets:

Inadvertently, they are assuring that fewer Americans will qualify for home mortgages. This promises to speed-shrink the housing market, which constitutes an estimated 15% of the nation’s gross domestic product, versus 18.6% prior to the Great Recession. This, in turn, will ensure that the recovery remains anemic into the foreseeable future, with an average of about 190,000 or fewer jobs created each month — far short of the 300,000 required to make up for recession-related losses.

Crucial parts already are flying off the train. Banks are exiting from the mortgage business in large numbers, primarily because of the high operating costs and heightened litigation risks imposed by the Dodd-Frank financial-reform law.

                    Source: Barron’s

Existing Home Sales Tumble | Pound Ridge NY Homes

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Existing home sales fell 3.2% month-over-month in October to an annualized pace of 5.12 million units.

This was worse than expectations for a 2.9% month-over-month to an annualized pace of 5.14 million units.

This was the second straight monthly decline.

September’s number was left unchanged to show a 1.9% MoM fall to 5.29 million units the previous month.

“The erosion in buying power is dampening home sales,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist said in a press release. “Moreover, low inventory is holding back sales while at the same time pushing up home prices in most of the country. More new home construction is needed to help relieve the inventory pressure and moderate price gains.”

The national median existing-home price was up 12.8% on the year to $199,500. Meanwhile, the median time for homes on the market was 54 days, up from 50 days the previous month.

Housing inventory fell 1.8% to 2.13 million units for sale at the end of the month. This represented a 5 month supply at current sales pace.

The share of distressed sales in existing home sales was unchanged at 14% in October. This is up from 12% in August, but is well down from 27% in 2012, which is an encouraging sign for the market.

Here’s a look at the regional breakdown:

  • In the northeast, existing home sales fell 2.9% to an annual rate of 670,000, but were up 11.7% year-over-year.
  • In the Midwest, they fell 1.6% to 1.22 million units, but were up 8% from a year ago.
  • In the South, they were down 1.9% to 2.06 million units, but up 7.3% on the year.
  • In the West, existing home sales were down 7.1% to 1.17 million units, down 0.8% on the year.

Pending home sales, considered a leading indicator for future existing home sales, have been falling sharply. This suggests that existing home sales will be ticking lower.

Existing home sales account for a larger share of the market than new homes

 

 

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/comes-existing-home-sales-143906022.html

Spike Lee Wants $32M For UES Home With Celeb-Studded Past | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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Spike-Lee-and-the-Hatch-House.jpg [Photo via Flickr/Emilio Guerra.]

Though filmmaker Spike Lee is best known for his Brooklyn presence—the house where Crooklyn was shot sold for $400,000 over ask and the Fort Greene brownstone he inhabited in the 90s sold to that controversial dung artist—he actually owns an even more significant property on the Upper East Side. He just put the 8,292-square-foot, 2BR/2BA at 153 East 63rd Street on the market for $32 million, the Post reports, which he originally bought from artist Jasper Johns in 1998 for $16,624,999. (Though the formal deed lists the transaction as being worth nothing, and the rest of public records for the plot are hazy.)

Daytonian in Manhattan has chronicled the long history of the so-called Hatch House, named for the husband of Barbara Rutherford, who married Cyril Hatch in the nineteen-teens. Rutherford’s mother bought the property (formerly two horse stables) as a wedding gift for the Hatches.

Architect Frederick Sterner, who at one point had converted or designed essentially all of 63rd Street, is behind the “three-story Spanish renaissance fancy” with “a stucco facade and red-tile roof.” Though many of the residences he worked on are no longer in their original condition, notes the Times‘ Christopher Gray, Lee’s is

 

 

 

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/13/spike_lee_wants_32m_for_ues_home_with_celebstudded_past.php

Pound Ridge’s Richard Gere Will Be Honored At Jacob Burns Film Center | Pound Ridge Real Estate

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The 2013 Silver Screen Circle Dinner will honor Pound Ridge’s Richard Gere at the Jacob Burns Film Center Theater in Pleasantville on Monday, Nov. 25.

The evening will include select film clips highlighting  Gere’s career and contributions to the art of film as well as a question-and-answer session with Gere and JBFC Board President Janet Maslin.

This is an exclusive Silver Screen Circle members-only event in appreciation for their generous support. They will receive two to 10 complimentary tickets depending on their level of membership.

Gere, a Golden Globe winner, is known for his roles in films such as “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “Days of Heaven,” “American Gigolo” and “Pretty Woman,” among others.

Off screen, Gere is a devoted advocate for human rights in Tibet and for the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world.

To learn more about the Silver Screen Circle, or to join,  contact Kim Turner at 914-773-7663, ext. 429 or email her.

 

 

http://mtkisco.dailyvoice.com/events/pound-ridges-richard-gere-will-be-honored-jacob-burns-film-center

Pound Ridge NY Weekly Real Estate Report | #RobReportBlog

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Pound   Ridge NY Weekly Real Estate Report11/11/2013
Homes for sale79
Median Ask Price$1,075,000.00
Low Price$285,000.00
High Price$5,700,000.00
Average Size3854
Average Price/foot$350.00
Average DOM147
Average Ask Price$1,394,316.00