Listing of the Day
Location: Pound Ridge, New York
Price: $7.5 million
Windows, the one-time upstate New York country estate of Hollywood legend Tallulah Bankhead, was where she let down her hair—and took off her clothes when entertaining guests at her wild, all-night parties.
“The wooden signs along the long driveway that said ‘Please honk’ are still there,” said Jaclene Ginnel, president of Ginnel Real Estate, which listed the property. “She wanted to have enough time to give her guests a special greeting.”
Bankhead, who starred in Broadway’s “The Little Foxes” (1939) and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” (1944), lived in the 1930s white-washed brick Colonial with a variety of exotic pets, including a lion cub named after Winston Churchill and a parakeet who liked to sip champagne.
She was just as famous for her amorous exploits—she was quoted as saying that “I’m as pure as driven slush” and declared that she had had thousands of affairs with members of both sexes—as she was for her 300 roles in film, stage, television and radio.
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In her 1952 autobiography, Bankhead called Windows, which she so named because it had so many of them, “my haven and retreat, my castle and my cloister.”
Bankhead, who smoked 150 cigarettes a day, had emphysema. She died in 1968 at age 66. Decades before, she had sold Windows and moved into a New York City apartment.
The estate has not been on the market for almost three decades.
“The residence sits high in the center of the property,” Ms. Ginnel said. “It’s pastoral and private, and although it’s been updated, it’s pretty much in its original state.”
The pool house has a great room as well as a kitchenette, a bath and a changing room.
Ginnel Real Estate
Stats
The 6,006-square-foot residence, which presides over nearly 40 acres, has six bedrooms, six bathrooms and five fireplaces.
Amenities
Features include a library, an office, a pine-paneled den, a cedar closet, a greenhouse, a workshop, a heated swimming pool, a pool house that has a great room, a kitchenette, a bath and a changing room, a tennis court and a separate caretaker’s cottage.
The grounds, which include lawns, rolling meadows and open paddocks, feature a variety of mature trees.
Neighborhood Notes
Bankhead isn’t the only celebrity who lived in Pound Ridge, which is in chic Westchester County. Actor Richard Gere’s country estate sold at the end of June for $24.15 million , and TV Journalist Tom Brokaw lived there for many years, according to published reports.
“The main street is charming,” Ms. Ginnel said. “It’s filled with local boutiques.”
Agents: Ben Ginnel and Cheryl Neuburger, Ginnel Real Estate
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