The home on 123 Saddle Rock Road in Stamford has only claimed four owners in its 107 years. But in the past four years, the home has been on and off the market, Realtor.com shows, and in that time, it has dropped in price by around $4 million from its $11.95 million price in April 2018. Now the 5,297 square-foot home has been relisted for $7.995 million.
The property is Stamford’s southernmost site, according to Andrew Wood, vice president of public relations and communications at Sotheby’s International Realty. Located on the end of the Shippan Point peninsula, the site is rumored to have been a lookout that guarded Stamford and New York harbors during the two World Wars.
The house was later built on that site in 1914 by sibling architectural team Richard Howland Hunt and Joseph Howland Hunt, Wood said in an email. Those same architects designed Beacon Towers in Sands Point, Long Island, which, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, was built for Alva Belmont, the ex-wife of railroad tycoon William K. Vanderbilt. It was later owned by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. The house is also often cited as the “architectural muse” for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”
This isn’t Fitzgerald’s only connection to Fairfield County. While the Beacon Towers property in Long Island claims to be the author’s inspiration for Jay Gatsby’s mansion, some believe that its fictional setting of West Egg stemmed from the time Fitzgerald spent living in Westport.
The Stamford property, known as the “Saddle Rock House, was constructed for inventor Thomas Robins, according to Wood, who created the rubber conveyor belt while working alongside Thomas Edison. Inside the property’s main house are six bedrooms, according to the listing, along with a living room, dining room and sun room that are all encased in “walls of glass.” Built in a “Richardsonian Romanesque style,” according to Wood, the home has been outfitted with a new kitchen, smart home technology and a “vintage, temperature-controlled wine cellar.”
In addition to the views of Long Island Sound, the Stamford Harbor Lighthouse and Manhattan skyline, the property also has a heated saltwater pool, Wood noted, along with a “covered stone grotto,” tennis court, boat launch and stone guest cottage.
And guarding the home’s gated entry — a bear statue, one that Wood said spurred locals to nickname the property the “Bear House.”
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