The Heiress

THE HEIRESS

     We were handling a listing for Alan C. Cohen and his wife, who lived in a magnificent house in Katonah, right on the Cross River Reservoir.

     We went over to the house and could see immediately that it was exactly what people wanted if the wanted a water view in Katonah. It was just a beautiful house in a perfect setting.

     So we advertised it in the New York Times Magazine’s real estate section.

     Well! No sooner had the ad appeared than a young couple walked into the office with the ad in their hands. They wanted to see this special property and house, and they wanted to see it right away on that Sunday.

     The young couple, Candace and Anton Perich, were artists. They drove an older BMW, and there was no pretense about them at all. They knew what they wanted, and they were really excited about seeing this property just a few hours after the ad appeared.

     So Craig took them out to see the house, show them the property and the water views, answer any questions they might have.

     As soon as they saw the property, they let us know they wanted it. Simple as that—they saw the house and wanted to buy it.

     The next day this big limousine pulls up in front of the office and a gentleman banker—he even looked like a banker (I’m sure you know what I mean)—got out, came in and introduced himself.

     He was Charles Nozzle of U.S. Trust.

     He was smiling and happy to meet us and let us know that he had come to tell us that the girl who had seen the house ye4sterday could afford to buy anything she wanted. She was an heiress to the 3M-Company fortune, among other holdings, and as her banker made clear, if she wanted the house, she could buy it.

     My God that deal was fast!

     But even better than being fast, the deal was right.

     It was right for Candace and Anton, it was right for Mr. and Mrs. Cohen, and there was no chance at all of it going wrong. With Mr. Nozzle watching every move. He had known Candace since she was a little baby and made sure that everything was in order. Which of course it was.

     What an exciting deal—one day, one ad, the right people and it was done.

     We began looking for another house for Mr. Cohen. I can’t remember exactly where he went next, but I do remember that Josie Everts had a big house on a lovely piece of property. The big house was torn down years ago, but a large cottage and guest house were left.

     That was for sale on a very, very large piece of property on Croton Lake Road. But the difficulty was that to reach the property you had to go around a hairpin curve in the driveway. But the driveway was so narrow that when you went through that curve you could hardly tell if you were still on the drive. You would actually wonder if you were going to make it to the cottage—but of course you did.

     Mr. Cohen bought that property and stayed there for a little while, but one day he came into the office and let us know he was looking for something new. His wife had passed away some time earlier, I believe. But he had met a girl on an airplane trip, and he was going to marry her.

     So he wanted to look at another house, a big colonial that we had just offered on the market. This was a really massive house, a white three-story colonial with a cottage and a pond. The house had just recently been beautifully re-done by a woman from a famous New York family in the glass business.

She loved the house and what she had done with it, but the land, she felt, was not exactly the sort of grounds she wanted to bring young children up on. She was concerned about the pond, and because the back of the land went up to a mountain. Although the back was terraced magnificently, it didn’t leave a lot of open area for young children to run and play.

The house was superb. It had a magnificently re-done kitchen. The older part of the house had been done over with exceptionallybeautiful woodwork and carpentry. The house was perfect—it didn’t miss a beat.

We brought the Cohens there, and they fell in love at first sight. And they too decided to continue making improvements. They wanted to add their own touch to it, as every homeowner does. They added a modern bathroom to the master suite. The suite itself was huge and you could enter it from all sides—it was all open and glass. They did a simply wonderful job.

All of this happened as a result of that one ad that caught the attention of Candace and Anton, who settled beautifully into Katonah and became an important part of our area. Candace opened a photography gallery that became very well-known.

They were incredible people, incredibly knowledgeable people who knew exactly what they wanted—and when they found it, they could afford it without any stress.

That was just a magical Sunday—a single day that spread many more days’ more magic over all involved in the sale of the Cohens’ house to two young and charming artists.