By Allison Brophy Champion
Nov 9, 2012
This Gothic, circa-1852 Victorian sits atop a hill in Greenwich back country. It is on the market for $1.95 million and includes an attractively modern barn house with three bedrooms in a water-rich area linked to Civil War munitions production.
“Our listing at 332 Riversville Road is a great home,” said real estate agent Michelle Giorno with Round Hill Partners, Inc. “It’s two homes for the price of one with a completely renovated ‘barn.’”
Giorno markets the 0.7-acre property on the Byram River as “a storied landmark of 19th-century town history.” The four-bedroom main residence is a clapboard farmhouse with a front porch leading to a center hall of tall ceilings, hardwood floors, rich moldings and floor-to-ceiling windows that bathe the home in natural light.
The property offers the character and ambiance of the Victorian period with its preserved original details, while also providing endless up-to-date luxuries, according to Giorno. The main-level living room has a cozy sitting alcove adjoining the formal dining and family rooms, beside the gourmet kitchen outfitted in granite and chrome. A powder room completes the main level.
Four bedrooms on the second floor share a hall bathroom while a third floor is alternately a playroom or office with another powder room.
The listing at 332 Riversville Road includes the aforementioned barn house, an eclectic architectural showpiece of sleek angles and soft archways in Contemporary-style, with vintage accents and abundant light.
A two-story skylit great room provides formal and informal living areas for fireside entertaining as well as a gourmet kitchen and spacious dining area opening to the garden patio.
The barn house offers a second-floor loft with three bedrooms, two marble bathrooms and an open office space. A family room on this level opens to a grand terrace overlooking expansive lawns, artistic stone masonry and dramatic rock outcroppings, according to Giorno.
The 332 Riversville Road property has an explosive history, so to speak.
According to Daniel Mead’s “A history of the town of Greenwich,” published in 1857, Josiah Wilcox operated Tinners’ Tools Factory on the Byram at nearby Wilcox Pond.
Wilcox was a pioneer in metal-working who built his shop by the pond on the western branch of the Byram River in 1828. He did so in order to gain water power from a dam, according to a Feb. 18, 2010 column in the Greenwich Time by Norma Bartol.
Tinners’ Tools Factory manufactured carriage hardware and screw products including, Bartol writes, ammunition and cannonballs during the Civil War. When not making metal, Wilcox was a town commissioner and member of the state legislature. He built a Greek Revival house on Riversville Road in 1838, according to Bartol’s column, “Josiah Wilcox house a treasured piece of Greenwich history.”
Listing agent: Michelle Giorno, Round Hill Partners, 203-861-0050
