No man is an island.
But if he can cough up millions of bucks, he can buy his own near New York City.
One of them floats just off Darien, Conn. — a 7.1-acre island capped with a single 8,332-square-foot residence. This car-accessible estate at 20 Juniper Road includes five bedrooms with Long Island Sound views, a pool and a dock for $17.5 million.
Another retreat, located some 50 miles farther east, is a 1.1-acre private isle named Potato Island — also in the Sound — that’s reached only by boat.
This island, listed for $6.5 million, holds a renovated 3,871-square-foot four-bedroom home with views of the surrounding Thimble Islands.
Or a buyer can snap up several of them. A portfolio of eight Thimble islands located off Branford, Conn., near New Haven — seven of which have their own homes — has just been relisted by Douglas Elliman’s Melissa Frank Lutz for $50 million.
These plots are also available for individual sale, with prices from about $1.7 million.
“It’s a very adventurous kind of lifestyle,” says Willard Finkle, of Page Taft Christie’s International Real Estate, who is marketing Potato Island. “If you want a quart of milk, you need to get in your boat.”
It’s rare to find this kind of property mere hours from the city. Of Connecticut’s hundreds of offshore islands, not many are habitable. And owners tend to hold onto houses on the ones that are for years.
But those looking to form their own little empire have a great chance right now, because several private — and fully equipped — islands off Connecticut are currently for sale.
While the exact number of private-island listings located in this pocket of the Long Island Sound isn’t available, local brokers tell The Post they’re seeing more up for grabs now than in recent years — specifically, at least 14 active listings, whose prices start at roughly $2 million and top out above $100 million.
“It’s unusual that [this many] islands come up for sale,” Finkle says. “Most of these are in families that get handed down from generation to generation.”
Aging owners largely account for the availability of these listings. As family members grow older and less interested in maintenance, they decide to sell. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“There’s a huge emotional attachment to them,” says Joe Piscitelli, of Coldwell Banker Previews International, who’s marketed five private Connecticut islands during his 25-year career.
Take Darien’s Great Island — a 63-acre car-accessible island estate — now available for the first time since 1902. This island, long a compound for the family who still owns it — descendants of industrialist William Ziegler — hit the market last September for $175 million. If Great Island sells for that price, it would crush the national record for most expensive property ever sold in the US by tens of millions of dollars. Despite the property’s many perks — a tile-roofed main house with water views in all directions, its polo field, several beach cottages and a yacht basin — family members have finally decided to part ways with it.
“The next generation has created their own lives elsewhere,” says David Ogilvy, of David Ogilvy & Associates Christie’s International Real Estate, who’s marketing this listing.
While other Connecticut islands may not have family ties that run as deep, they boast fascinating histories.
“It goes back to the colonial days,” says Higgins Group Christie’s International Real Estate CEO Rick Higgins of Tavern Island — a 3½-acre estate with NYC skyline views located a seven-minute boat ride from Rowayton, Conn. near Darien — that’s listed for $10.99 million. English settlers first inhabited this island in 1651; on its tip still stands an old cannon mounted during the Revolutionary War to defend against the British army. Centuries later, Tavern Island was a party destination for Marilyn Monroe when theater maven Billy Rose owned the spread in the mid-20th century. Now, the listing includes an English colonial-style main home, a guest cottage, a tea house and a 75-foot pool.
Farther east in the Thimbles — a 365-island archipelago — there’s Pot Island. Though not completely private (it holds three homes), one property — a renovated 6,300-square-foot, 11-bedroom pad with a double-height kitchen — will return to market in April for $1.99 million. Originally built in 1845 as a hotel, locals flocked there for evening entertainment.
“[Visitors] would come out from New Haven on paddle steamers … [to] dance and then go back to town,” says Connecticut-based Jeff Lund, a 69-year-old education and health care consultant, who owns the Pot Island former-hotel house. He’s used it as a summer getaway since 1995.
Fun history aside, many may wonder how easy it is to live alone, or nearly alone, on an island separated from nearby conveniences.
“It was a very simple, back-to-nature, close-to-family type of existence,” says Lund, who, beginning in his teen years, spent summers on islands in the Long Island Sound and says this experience is why he continues to do so. (Lund adds that he’s selling his current manse in a downsizing effort to find another home, which he hopes is also on an island.)
“We grew up kayaking, fishing and swimming … it’s almost a Norman Rockwell type of life.”
In 1963, when Lund was 16, his parents purchased Grey Rock Island in the Thimbles. Later that decade, they sold the property and eventually purchased Potato Island. He adds his family had three small boats, and it was easy to zoom seven minutes to the coast to stock up on provisions. Back then, they had propane instead of electricity — even a system to catch rainwater for the taps. Thankfully, mainland-caliber power and water connections now exist.
“It’s fair to say it’s not for everyone, but those that do it — they’re committed to it and they love it,” Lund says.
True, island living isn’t for everyone — and it shows in both the amount of time these properties linger on the market and how much they have to chop their asking prices.
Tavern Island has been listed for four years. Potato has been on and off the market for three years. That $50 million portfolio of eight islands? That was originally listed last year for $78 million through a different brokerage. There’s also a 4.24-acre, car-accessible private Thimble island at 134 Old Quarry Road off Guilford. It features a 2004-built Georgian manor with five bedrooms and wide water views that originally asked $15 million in 2015, but is now asking $9.87 million.
“It’s a niche market that needs a very specific buyer,” says property appraisal guru Jonathan Miller. “And those buyers are limited.”
Experts say high pricing also plays a role.
“It’s hard to let go and part of the process is [owners are] putting a price on it that [shows] they’re not ready to sell yet,” says Piscitelli, who has that $9.87 million Guilford listing. “After they get into the mold of selling and feel comfortable with the fact they’re letting go, they put more of a realistic price on them.”
But local brokers say the islands have received recent visits from interested buyers — in part because privacy is a big lure. “Activity has picked up in showings,” says Finkle. Some have even nabbed headlines. In 2015, both supermodel Heidi Klum and “Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran toured Tavern Island.
“You are taking a boat back and forth to the shore — to me it’s like a long driveway,” Higgins says. “Maybe it seems too adventurous for some people, but that’s part of the charm.”