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Named Highwood when built by the Van Rensselaer family in the 1920s, this spectacular and unique home features a great room recreated from an 18th-century church. With its intricate vaulted ceiling, detailed hand-carved paneling, and custom plaster walls, the room includes a choir loft, large Gothic windows, and a Dutch door with transom and fan-window surrounds that open into a three-season porch with exposed beams and oxidized woodwork. Custom Italian sconces, inset 18th-century oil paintings integrated into the paneling, soaring ceilings, built-in bookcases, glazed-door cabinets, and a wood-burning fireplace make this space one of the finest examples of its type. It truly feels like theater—transporting you to another time and place.
The entire home was expanded and renovated between 2016 and 2018, with careful attention to honoring its past while updating it for the future. Highwood now has an open-concept kitchen with an adjoining dining and family room, which opens via French doors to an office or sitting area. This leads into a first-floor primary suite with cathedral ceilings, an en suite bath with a tiled shower, a separate claw-foot tub, and a walk-in closet.
The kitchen also connects to a hallway leading to the garages, a yoga studio or playroom, and a deck and patio. A lift from the garage provides easy access to the home—for everything from groceries to a wheelchair. The second floor of the main house offers four additional bedrooms and two tiled bathrooms, one of which is en suite.
The home is situated on more than three acres and borders conservation land. Low-maintenance gardens and custom stone walls frame the patio, with a fence providing privacy along the street side. A hand-wrought cast-iron gate marks the home’s original entrance, serving as both an architectural feature and a reminder of its history. This gate was a housewarming gift from Lady Astor to Mrs. Van Rensselaer.
Disclaimer: The listing agent is related to the seller.
