Monday 21 April 2014
08:08

Your Mama Hears...

...from the kindly Rosetta Stone that word on the real estate street in affluent Watch Hill, Rhode Island, is that Taylor Swift may have caught a classic case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and might be looking to quietly unload High Watch, the hulking 1930s ocean front mansion she purchased about a year ago for $17,750,000. (It's just rumor and gossip, children, rumor and gossip.)

Since she acquired the historic and exceedingly visible estate, once the summer residence of Standard Oil heiress Rebekah Harkness, the vindictive song penning crossover pop-country superstar has dumped a fair amount of dough on upgrades and improvements. No doubt she beefed up the security systems and she made much scrutinized and publicized repairs to the Hurricane Sandy damaged sea wall at the bottom of the steep bluff atop which the 11,000 square foot multi-story Colonial residence proudly perches.

Listing details (and other reports) from the time of Miss Swift's purchase show the 16-room Colonial-style pile sits on 5.23 hedged and gated acres with 8 bedrooms and 10.5 bathrooms. Inside there are several reception rooms (living room, parlor, library), an octagonal dining room with built-in china cabinetry, a 45-foot long sun porch, and an updated eat in kitchen. Many rooms on the main and upper levels open to various verandas, balconies and expansive terraces with sweeping views from Block Island to Montauk Point. Set on a plateau below the house there's an ocean view swimming pool with an adjacent, flat-roofed pool house/fitness center.

For a gal of her age—she's 23 or 24 or something like that—Miss Swift maintains an impressive portfolio of private residences. She owns eccentrically decorated 4,000+ square foot duplex penthouse in downtown Nashville she picked up in August 2009 for $1.99 million and she—or possibly her parents—shelled out $2.5 million in June 2011 for a semi-pastoral multi-acre spread with a large Greek Revival sprawler in the leafy Belle Meade area south of downtown Nashville. In Los Angeles she owns a  a micro-compound tucked deep into a quiet canyon in Beverly Hills—acquired in April 2011 for $3.55 million—and she's the much rumored buyer of an 8,000+ square foot duplex penthouse in lower Manhattan that writer/director/producer Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises) sold last month (May, 2014) for $19.95 million.

listing photo: Seaboard Properties

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