The New York Post reports that scoop-chasing silver fox Anderson Cooper just dropped anywhere between $5M and $9M on a 10,127-square-foot Tudor revival in Litchfield, Conn. The addition of the Rye House, built in 1908 and designed by Wilson Eyre, an architect and founder of House & Garden magazine, means that the CNN anchor has three tony East Coast getaways within summering distance of the converted Greenwich Village firehouse he calls home, although he's still trying to unload one of his pair of neighboring Hamptons abodes for $2.699M. It's probably safe to say that the amount Cooper shelled out for his new Litchfield County digs is at the lower end of the Post's estimate, unless he went in for a neighboring parcel as well; when the 18-room mansion was listed back in 2011 for $6.95M, it was slashed down to $5.995M without finding a buyer. The last owners, a former Miss Connecticut named Karen Shaw who starred on "Dallas" and "The A Team," and her husband, Marc, were seeking $5.3M as of this February.
What the listing refers to as a "stunning stone and stucco English Country manor house" was originally the home of heiress Isabella Douglas Curtis. The Shaws acquired it back in 2001 for $2.05M and restored it, bringing the nationally registered mansion's original chestnut paneling, limestone fireplaces, and a hand-carved marble staircase up to a level that had them renting it out for $1,800 a night. The Post has it sitting on a 280-acre grounds with "Japanese pagoda trees, wisteria, magnolias, a walkway with stone pillars and a grape arbor"; the listing for the home only has it with 48.9 acres, so if Cooper bought more land along with it, that could explain reports of a buy as high as $9M. In any event, tour the traditionally appointed halls of his new getaway below:
Anderson Cooper buys multi-million dollar Connecticut home [New York Post via The Real Deal]
122 Old Mount Tom Road [Estately]
· All Anderson Cooper coverage [Curbed National]
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