This five-bedroom waterfront home at 9 Pier Way Landing in Westport recently was purchased for $9.2 million, setting a new record for the town’s single-family market.
The Boston Red Sox weren’t the only ones making history recently. Westport Realtor Michelle Genovesi made some history of her own with her sale of a $9.2 million waterfront home in the Fairfield County town. The sale broke the previous record for the most expensive single-family sale in Westport by nearly $2 million.
Genovesi, sales vice president and managing director of William Raveis Real Estate’s international division, sold the five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom home at 9 Pier Way Landing on Sept. 21, according to a press release from William Raveis. The home, which is on the Long Island Sound, also has a deep-water dock and a pool. Its asking price was $9.5 million.
“A well-deserved congratulations goes out to Michelle for her work in making this closing possible,” said Beverly Walsh, sales manager at William Raveis International’s Westport office. “Michelle’s high standards of professionalism and her dedication to her clients helped close the sale. And this kind of sale demonstrates the robust nature of the lower Fairfield County real estate market. Fairfield County is home to thousands of residents whose continued appreciation of the area’s many appealing qualities makes Fairfield County a highly desirable address and a wonderful place to live.”
The 7,068-square-foot property was on the market for 52 days before the sale, Genovesi said. Although there were not a lot of buyers in the price range, the interested parties were either people from out of town looking for a second home or local people seeking to move closer to the water, she said. Genovesi did not name the buyers, but said they were from New York.
Genovesi held the previous record for selling the most expensive house in Westport. In 1996, she sold a home on Beachside Avenue for $7.3 million. That price was matched earlier this summer with the sale of a house on Charmer’s Landing, she said.
‘Lifestyle-Specific’
The Pier Way Landing home has 11 rooms, a cabana near the pool, a professional putting green and a patio. The home was designed by Richard Mervis and incorporates stone, glass and wood. It was built in 1986.
The first floor of the home includes a 2-story foyer with marble and wood floors, according to the sales brochure on Genovesi’s Web site. The foyer leads into the living room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the Sound and a stone fireplace. Also on the first floor are a formal dining room, a sunroom, a gourmet kitchen, a family room and two bedrooms. The second floor includes a sitting room and the rest of the bathrooms.
The home also has a laundry room, a three-car garage, a full basement, a sound system, central vacuum cleaner, a sprinkler system and a security system.
Although the Pier Way Landing sale broke a Westport record, the waterfront market in the area is more regional than local, Genovesi said.
“The waterfront market is not town-specific, but more lifestyle-specific,” she said.
Potential buyers looking for waterfront properties often first look in Greenwich and Darien, then move up to Westport. So when the Pier Way Landing home went up for sale, Genovesi target-marketed to buyers’ agents in those towns.
“I marketed down the line for that,” she said.
Genovesi, who specializes in selling waterfront homes and exceptional properties, markets to agents in addition to buyers. She said she spends considerable time marketing to and networking with other agents.
“They’re my first customer[s],” she said.
Genovesi oversees a team of five and has been recognized for her use of technology by Forbes Magazine, she said. She and her team use the Internet to market to buyers and agents. Genovesi also hands out CD-ROMs to prospective homebuyers that contain PDF files that the buyer can look at or e-mail to a spouse who might not working in the country, she said.
“That’s something that has been well received,” Genovesi said.
Genovesi, a Westport resident and a longtime William Raveis sales associate, has nearly 20 years of experience in the real estate industry. She was named the No. 1 listing agent for exceptional properties in Fairfield County, based on total sales volume, in 2003. She leads the top-producing William Raveis International team in the state of Connecticut, based on sales volume, according to a release from William Raveis.
