Reality television star Bethenny Frankel sold her Connecticut home this week to an unknown buyer in an off-market deal for $7.8 million, reportedly turning a multimillion-dollar profit on a property she bought nearly four years ago.
Frankel is perhaps most known for her television appearances on Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York City," Frankel was on the show for eight seasons. She now runs a company that sells prepackaged drinks called Skinnygirl Cocktails and a nonprofit called BStrong, which sends emergency supplies to victims of natural disasters.
Frankel's sale comes after the Queens native announced this spring that she was moving her family to the Sunshine State.
"I am moving to Florida for personal and professional reasons," Frankel said in a TikTok video she posted in April, adding that she will maintain residences in the Hamptons and New York City. "Something has arisen that made this the best and healthiest decision for myself and my daughter."
The home Frankel sold in Connecticut is locally known as Applejack Farm, and it's one of the oldest houses in Greenwich. Built in 1743, the home is about 6,500 square feet with five bedrooms and eight bathrooms on a roughly 3-acre lot. The property also has a guest cottage with two bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Applejack Farm has had many owners in its 300-year-plus history. Former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker owned it with his wife, Claudia, from 1989 to 2001. Frankel purchased the property for $4.2 million in August 2021.
The property also comes with a three-space garage, a stone patio, and an enclosed bar.
All told, Applejack Farm has both "historic pedigree and modern luxury," Jeff Jackson, the real estate agent at Corcoran Centric Realty who represented Frankel in the transaction, said in a statement.
"Properties with this level of attention to detail, and with such rich architectural distinction, seldom come to market," Jackson said.
Greenwich faces a housing shortage
Greenwich is a coastal community that became popular in the 1980s when wealthy New Yorkers flocked there for summer vacations. Colonial Revivals, Cape Cods, and cottages with yards featuring white picket fences are mainstays in the housing stock. But like other cities in Connecticut, the Greenwich area is facing a shortage of listings and increasing demand.
Greenwich has to build roughly 3,400 more units to help combat the city and statewide housing shortage, according to a May study state lawmakers commissioned from Oregon-based consulting firm ECOnorthwest.
As of June 13, the listings for single-family homes in the town ranged from a two-bedroom, prewar Colonial with 1,123 square feet of living space and a $695,000 price tag to a six-bedroom waterfront Georgian mansion that offers 12,492 square feet of living space and seeks $44.6 million.
Aside from the celebrity status of its previous owner, Applejack Farm sold quickly because of those factors at play in Greenwich's market, Jackson said.
"In a town where demand continues to outpace supply, even at the highest end of the market, the opportunity to own a legacy estate such as this one is very rare," Jackson said in the statement. "Therefore, it is no surprise that the home was swiftly snapped up, epitomizing Greenwich’s current market trends."