Max Eastman

After a version of a previous blog post, Mount Airy Road: Reds-on-Hudson, appeared in a local newspaper, the historical accuracy of some of its assertions was challenged by Robert Scott, for many years Croton-on-Hudson’s unofficial historian. Specifically, he says it is untrue that Charlie Chaplin and Leon Trotsky were “house guests” of Max Eastman, and that Isadora Duncan, the San Francisco-born founder of modern dance, could not have danced on the terrace of Gloria Swanson’s “castle.”

My research was conducted on the Internet, that rich mine of undifferentiated knowledge that sweeps up and throws back everything from established fact to rank speculation, rumor and invention without distinction. It is perfectly plausible to me that my research was contaminated by lore (“knowledge gained through tradition or anecdote”) posing as fact. But since even information on a blog can mislead the unwary Googler searching for truth, it’s still important to correct the record here. Besides, true history can be every bit as colorful as lore.

Charlie Chaplin

In correcting my mistakes, Mr. Scott provided facts that were even more fascinating than my own suspect ones. While Charlie Chaplin certainly was close friends with Max Eastman, he would not have been Eastman’s house guest in Croton, says Mr. Scott, because at the time of his visit to Croton in 1920, he and Eastman were vying for the affections of Hollywood actress Florence Deshon. “She was living with Eastman and shuttling back and forth between the suitors, trying to decide which one she loved. Although she and Chaplin walked together around Croton, Chaplin refused to visit Eastman.” And where was Chaplin actually staying while in Croton? The Tumble Inn, Scott says, a roadhouse located where the Skyview Nursing Home now stands. A slightly different version is found in Joyce Milton’s 1998 biography, “Tramp: the Life of Charlie Chaplin.” Torn between the two men, and determined “to spark a confrontation, [Deshon] persuaded Charlie to accompany her to Croton, but while walking up the path to Max’s cottage, his courage failed him. He left her there and hurried back to New York alone.” This is great stuff.

Leon Trotsky

As for Eastman’s great friend Leon Trotsky, Mr. Scott convincingly explains why Trotsky also could not have been Eastman’s guest at the latter’s house on Mount Airy Road. But in an extended phone conversation, Scott told me that long-time Croton resident Dr. Daniel Salzberg, who bought the house from Eastman in the 1940s, found in the attic Trotsky’s original manuscript for his massive book, “The History of the Russian Revolution,” which Eastman translated into English with the help of his Russian bride.

Finally, Isadora Duncan could not have danced on the terrace of Gloria Swanson’s castle in Croton because, as Robert Scott pointed out, the dates don’t work. Duncan gave her last performances in the United States in 1923, then left the country, never to return. Swanson bought her house in Croton the following year, 1924.

Isadora Duncan

Yet the Croton lore persists. Isadora’s sister Elizabeth ran a dance school off Mount Airy Road on Glengary Road, a stone’s throw from Swanson’s estate. Isadora undoubtedly spent time in Croton with her sister (according to the New York Times, Isadora “lived in Croton-on-Hudson for part of her life”). Even the long-time owner of the Swanson property, who had occasion to reminisce about it with Swanson herself, thought that Duncan had danced there, though she couldn’t say that Swanson had told her so. And if the castle was built in 1917, as some local records have it, we can not rule out that Duncan danced there before Swanson owned the property. Still, there appears to be no hard evidence to support the local lore connecting Duncan to the castle.

Meanwhile, in her sympathy for the newly fledged Soviet Union, Isadora fit right in with Croton’s “Reds-on-Hudson.” In 1922 she moved to Moscow, where she set up a dance school; she was a Soviet citizen at her death. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to be probated in the United States.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar

Early in the last century – the Twentieth, that is – Croton-on-Hudson became a Mecca for New York’s artsy, leftist crowd. Easy access from the City via the new electric trains (which switched back to steam at Harmon, now Croton-Harmon station) enticed both leading lights and fellow travelers – actors, writers, poets, painters and left-wing intellectuals – to build or buy summer or year-round cottages in the hills above the village. By the 1920s there was a thriving bohemian community centered in Croton, which became known as ”Greenwich Village on the Hudson.”

The focal point for this community became Mount Airy Road, which starts in the village downtown and climbs up what old timers still call “Red Hill” for the political leanings of these very particular settlers. A few years ago, long-time Croton resident Cornelia Cotton, artistic and political scion and chronicler of the history of this group, gave a lecture and slide show on historical Mount Airy houses to a standing-room-only audience at the Croton Free Library. She had to stop after 2½ hours and two full carousels of slides, not half-way through her program.

As a realtor with family roots in Croton, I’ve always been fascinated by this history, and if I drive by these noteworthy houses with clients in the car, they’ll probably get the full guided-tour treatment, even when we’re on our way somewhere else. I take special pleasure in showing and selling these homes, and I’ve sold more than my share.

Joseph Freeman, a writer and frequent visitor in the post-World War I period, described the radical colony in his 1936 memoir, An American Testament:

“At this time, Croton-on-Hudson was a kind of literary and political shrine. The sacred grove was a stretch of brown hilly earth known as Mount Airy Road, on both sides of which, separated by an acre or two of land, stood the houses of John Reed, Boardman Robinson, Lydia Gibson, Floyd Dell and Stuart Chase… . It was some time before I realized that Croton was only a suburb of Washington Square.”

Freeman usually stayed with Floyd Dell, who bought the 1892 farmhouse at 75 Mount Airy Rd. in 1919. Dell was an influential editor, novelist and literary critic who held virtual salons at his house for visiting radical artists and intellectuals. Freeman recalls a memorable weekend there with Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle, the muckraking novel about the U.S. meatpacking industry that had led to passage of the Pure Food & Drug Act in 1909. Last year I sold this house to a charming young couple who have been restoring it.

Across the street at no. 66 lived Boardman Robinson, artist and political cartoonist, in a classic center-hall colonial perched high on a bluff with views of the Hudson River. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, another frequenter of the Croton colony, was married in this house in 1923.

Next door and up the hill at no. 70 is the 200 year-old house that belonged to Max Eastman and his sister Crystal. Max was the dashing literary and social critic who was a leader in the radical Greenwich Village community. He was also editor of The Masses, a magazine combining socialist philosophy with the arts. His sister was a journalist and a prominent feminist who co-wrote the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and was a founding member and lawyer of the ACLU. Their home was the main crossroads for visiting luminaries, and their house guests included Charlie Chaplin and Max’s great friend Leon Trotsky. As a realtor, I was fascinated to discover that when Eastman bought this house, his down payment was twenty dollars and the purchase price was $1,500. In 2005, it sold for well over the asking price of $799,000.

Around the bend at the top of the hill, at no. 106, stands the 1840 house that John Reed bought in 1916. Reed is best known as the radical journalist who, with his wife Louise Bryant, participated in the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and wrote about it in his famous book, Ten Days That Shook the World. Warren Beatty based his great Oscar-winning movie Reds on “Jack” Reed’s story, and part of the film is set in Croton (though it was filmed in England), at the house where Reed wrote his book. Beatty took the role of Reed, of course, Diane Keaton played Bryant, and Floyd Dell was also featured in the screenplay. The Reed house was recently listed for sale.

History might have been different if Mabel Dodge hadn’t turned down Jack Reed’s proposal of marriage early in 1916, the same year he later married Louise Bryant. Dodge was the formidable heiress and patron of the arts who had established a weekly salon at her Fifth Avenue apartment in Greenwich Village. In 1913, she and Reed ran off to Paris, where they became lovers. In Paris and in Mabel’s palatial Tuscan villa outside Florence, they hobnobbed with the likes of Picasso, Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas, Artur Rubenstein and Andre Gide. Back in the U.S., Dodge lived in a house on Mount Airy, but when she rebuffed Reed’s marriage proposal, she moved to Finney Farm, not far away in the village. There, in a rambling farmhouse built in 1870, she offered Reed the use of the third floor as a writing studio. He tried it for a time, but it didn’t work out. He then bought her Mount Airy house and, that same year, Mabel married painter Maurice Sterne, her third husband. (1916 must have been quite a year.) Finney Farm already had a rich history when Dodge bought it. Horace (“Go West, young man”) Greeley was just one of the prominent visitors there in the mid-19th century. When I sold this house two years ago it was full of documents and other lore evoking this colorful past.

The stories and the history go on and on. Farther along Mount Airy, at no. 131, is another landmark of the time, Longue Vue Farm, the grand estate where Gloria Swanson lived and entertained in the late 1920s, and where Isadora Duncan loved to dance on the terrace of the castle. I sold this property too, but that’s a topic for another time. Croton’s history is too rich to be covered in other than small, manageable bites.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar

People who follow the ebbs and flows of real estate sales will know that the luxury home market has been suffering. Those who have a high-end home to sell know this in their gut. That suffering hits them personally.

Here in Croton-on-Hudson, the picture is especially stark. As of early November, a month into the fourth quarter, Croton has a whopping 21 houses for sale in the million-dollar range*. Yet the total number of million-dollar houses that have sold so far this year is just four, one in February, one in April, two more in October. With just one other recently in contract, chances are slim of another closing in 2009. At that rate, we have a five-year supply of luxury homes for sale – provided no more come on the market.

Recent reports have noted an up-tick in sales activity that might portend a long-awaited turnaround in real estate. But that good news is offset by the fact that, while houses are selling in greater number, prices continue to decline. The freeze at the high end accentuates the overall drop in prices. Most of the sales these days are concentrated at the low end, spurred on by the federal stimulus program that offers substantial tax credits to first-time home buyers in 2009. But without sales of costlier homes to balance the cheaper home sales, both the average and the median home prices get driven down.

Croton has always had its sprinkling of luxury homes – up in Teatown, off Mount Airy, out the Post Rd., overlooking the Hudson. Still, sales of homes for over a million dollars used to be a rarity in Croton, limited to the occasional estate property or exceptionally large or luxurious house. That all began to change in the late 1990s – just yesterday, it seems – as builders started feeding a hungry market with the new big-box colonials for the first time locally. The Arrowcrest subdivision off the Albany Post Rd. was the biggest development of these houses, but prices there initially didn’t approach $1 million. One Indian Summer Drive, the 5,000 sq. ft., 5-bedroom model for the development with Hudson River views and all the bells and whistles, sold in 1999 for only $753,000.

By the turn of the century, however, the market heated up enough to drive prices for high-end houses into seven figures. In 2000 an Arrowcrest house, one of the biggest in the development, sold for the first time for over $1 million. Two other properties, both older estates, also broke the million-dollar barrier that year. In 2001, four houses sold that had listed at over a million, then eight in 2002 and eleven in 2003. By 2006, that same model Arrowcrest house, the one that sold for $753,000 in 1999, was being offered for sale at $1,599,000! From 2002 through 2008, an average of eight houses a year, the majority of them newer construction, sold in the million dollar-plus range.

Then the bottom fell out. Or more precisely, since the subject is luxury homes, the top fell off. By the third quarter of 2008 the real estate bubble had burst nationally and the collapse of credit and the meltdown in the financial markets had hit the fan. The housing market had been softening and then slumping for a year already, but now it went into virtual hibernation. Buyers didn’t want to purchase in a falling market, and sellers didn’t want to take the losses the market seemed to demand. The Wall Street bonuses that traditionally fueled high-end sales after the holidays just never materialized.

Luxury home sales in Croton had an above-average year in 2008, when ten houses were sold at a million dollars or more. But 28 other such houses on the market in 2008 failed to sell; 14 of these were either withdrawn or expired without selling, the other 14 were carried over as still active into 2009. It’s even worse in 2009. Besides the 21 active houses, 10 others have already been taken off the market without selling, and a high number of the 21 remaining actives will likely be withdrawn or carried over into 2010.

What can be done? How can these houses get sold? Well, nothing can be done by sellers (or their agents) to change a bad market. They can’t persuade reluctant buyers to come in and start scooping up what are some pretty amazing bargains. But there are ways to differentiate a house from the competition.

Pricing is one answer. A Croton luxury home that didn’t sell at $1.4 or $1.3 million in 2008 was withdrawn long enough to update the kitchen and make other improvements. It was then returned to the market this year at $925,000, was in contract a few months later, and just closed at $910,000. Ouch! And, Hooray! The sellers were able to approach selling their home as a hard-nosed business proposition. They decided to bite the bullet and get on with their lives.

But pricing isn’t the only answer. Sometimes, after a series of price drops, it isn’t even the right answer. A house can be too big or too sumptuous or too unusual for buyers in its price range. The better solution might be to wait (if possible) for the right buyer, the one who appreciates the house and is willing to pay reasonably for it. Or wait (if possible) for the market to come back.

In the meantime, the suffering is bound to continue for luxury home owners, probably for the next year, maybe more. There is a sense among realtors of a pent-up demand among potential buyers, who have been putting their plans on hold but may be drawn back into the market by the undeniable bargains on offer. But that may be wishful thinking. Indeed, what buyers there are seem to be more intent on getting the deal of their dreams than the house of their dreams. Pretty cold comfort for sellers.

*I’m counting as million-dollar homes any house that was initially marketed at $990,000 and above, regardless of selling price or final asking price.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar

Just a few years ago, bidding wars were commonplace in our red-hot real estate market. Not bidding wars in the sense of a back-and-forth auction, where buyers were asked to top the latest offer until someone quit. Westchester’s more genteel approach was to give the competing buyers a deadline – “tomorrow by 5:00 p.m.” – to submit a sealed envelope with their highest and best offer. Highest in price, best in terms (how much in cash vs. mortgage, closing date, etc.).

Buyers hated this device. Basically, they had to bid blind, with no clue as to what the others might offer. I used to tell my buyers to figure out the most they could afford and the most the house was worth to them, then take the lower of the two numbers and offer that. Houses routinely sold for higher than the asking price, sometimes way higher.

Those days are so far gone, the market is so turned around, that recently I found myself contemplating a reverse bidding war: challenging two competing sellers to counter my buyers’ offer with their lowest and best. Here’s how it happened.

I was working with some high-end buyers who were looking in the Hudson River towns – Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow, Briarcliff Manor, Croton-on-Hudson. They had exhausted the available options in their price range and decided to just wait for new listings to come on the market. One house really tempted them, but price-wise it was too much of a stretch for them. A few months later, a house was listed that met all their criteria. They looked at it and, despite some minor drawbacks, they fell in love and put in an offer. The sellers countered, and while we were considering our next move, the house they had liked earlier dropped its price very close to the one they were now bidding on. What to do?

The buyers said that they liked the two houses equally well, they would be happy with either one. So it came down to price. They decided to buy whichever had a lower price. Hmm. A reverse bidding war. Give the two sellers until noon tomorrow to come up with the lowest price they would consider to sell their house.

I must confess, on some level the prospect of turning the tables on sellers was delicious. Don’t get me wrong. Nobody beats me as a champion of my seller clients. For at least two years I sold my listings at an average of more than 100% of the asking price. But in this case my clients were the buyers, and I couldn’t help feeling, on behalf of past buyers who’d been forced to jump through the highest-and-best hoop, that revenge would be sweet.

In the end, it wasn’t to be. I insisted that my buyers revisit both houses before launching our strategy (they hadn’t seen the first house for months), and when they did they had a clear preference. They signed contracts (!) by the end of the week. But in this buyer’s market it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that other buyers are pitting one seller against another in a reverse bidding war.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar

Last March I was prompted by a buyer client to analyze the relationship between asking prices and selling prices in two of the communities I cover, Briarcliff Manor and Croton-on-Hudson. A savvy Wall Streeter who followed market trends, this buyer was looking at houses in both places, and he told me flatly that he’d be a fool to pay any more than 75% of the asking price.

Sure enough, he liked a house I showed him and made an offer that took about a third, or almost 35%, off the asking price. When I told him he could not expect the seller to counter such a low-ball bid, he replied that given how the market was trending in Croton, especially for million-dollar-plus houses like this one, and given the history of this house which, although the price had come down from its original asking price, had been on the market for months at the same price, the seller should be happy with his offer.

The seller did not counter his offer.

Read the rest of this entry

Home buyers who are drawn to Westchester County for its proximity to the majestic Hudson River sometimes insist on a house right on the water, and are willing to pay for it. When told there are virtually no houses with direct water access they are incredulous. Thirty-five miles of shoreline from New York City to Peekskill, and the number of waterfront houses for sale is zero? How is that possible?

The explanation is quite simple: the railroad. In the 19th Century, trains offered a faster, more efficient means of transport than boats, and the shoreline, unlike the rocky hills above it, was flat. Tracks were laid in 1850, and soon attracted factories and warehouses that cemented the character of the riverfront as largely commercial and industrial.

Not that there’s any shortage of houses with great views of the river. And commuters to Manhattan get the full benefit of those Hudson Line tracks, watching the changing seasons as the river scrolls by, and those glorious sunsets on the way home. But homes on the water? Mostly ruled out.

There are a few exceptions. Condos, for instance. In the late 1980s a strip of land on the water side of the tracks in Croton-on-Hudson was reclaimed for development of Half Moon Bay, an upscale, gated condominium complex. (More about that in a future blog posting here.) Similarly, another luxury condo complex, Ichabod’s Landing, has just been constructed where the huge former General Motors assembly plant used to sit, on the water just north of the Tarrytown train station.

Farther north, just above Croton, the tracks suddenly veer inland at Crugers and don’t reappear at the water’s edge till Peekskill, leaving the river hamlets of Montrose, Verplanck and Buchanan on a peninsula free of the railroad. Most of the shoreline here is taken up by a veterans hospital, a county park, a power plant, a yacht club and some light industrial buildings. There are, however, a few tiny enclaves of mostly (but not exclusively) modest houses on the water that very occasionally come on the market. It helps to know an agent who pays attention to these areas who can alert a buyer to an upcoming opportunity.

The next best thing to actual water access is a close-up river view from just behind the tracks, and here there are usually some interesting opportunities, especially between Tarrytown and Ossining, including Sleepy Hollow, Philipse Manor and Scarborough, but also in Croton and a bit farther north. More distant river views are more plentiful, and they too will be addressed in future postings. The point for now is to have realistic expectations of houses with direct water access on the Hudson River.

For more detailed information, contact me at Bruce@BruceDollar.com.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar

Lately I’ve had buyers tell me they’ve heard that if they spend more than 10% (or 15% or even 20%) of the asking price for a house in today’s market they are not getting a good deal. This may be true in some parts of the country, but not in Westchester, at least not in my part of it. In fact, my impression has been that houses are still selling at close to the asking price, as long as the price is right. Overpriced houses tend not to sell at all. They have to lower their prices to a point where they are a good buy for the market, and then they sell fairly close to the final asking price.

To see if this impression was correct, I looked at sales figures in two of my primary markets, Briarcliff Manor and Croton-on-Hudson. Briarcliff and Croton are adjacent communities, about the same size in population and housing inventory but different demographics: in 2008, Briarcliff single-family homes sold at a median price of $942,450, while the median selling price of a house in Croton in 2008 was $520,000. I took all of the houses sold in both communities in the last six months and compared their selling prices with their final asking prices. In the period since Sept. 20, 2008, a total of 16 houses were sold in Briarcliff and 17 in Croton. In Briarcliff, the average selling price was 95.53% of the average asking price, while in Croton the selling price averaged 95.11% of the asking price. These numbers are remarkably consistent, both across the price range and across the two communities.

What lessons can we draw from this? For sellers, you need to find the correct price, the one that will attract buyers. Many sellers are reluctant to cut their price “too much,” fearing that buyers will simply low-ball their offers by the same margin they did at the higher price. But these figures suggest that the correct price will yield a selling price that is surprisingly close to asking.

For buyers, you need to adjust your expectations of what you may have to pay for the house of your choice. If a house is well priced, it is reasonable for a seller to expect to sell close to (within 95% of) the asking price. Anyone who expects to pay no more than 90% will probably be disappointed.

So how do you judge, whether you’re a buyer or seller, what the correct price is? This is where your agent comes in. It’s your realtor’s job to know the local market and to advise you when a price is right.

Posted By: Bruce Dollar