Guns, Booze, Sinatra: History-Drenched Home For Sale In Old Saybrook

OLD SAYBROOK, CT — A 20th century Connecticut castle, drenched in history and the spray from Long Island Sound, is on the market for $7.75 million.

The 17,000-square-foot English Tudor Revival-style home was built at 12 Billow Road in Old Saybrook in 1908. The property just listed as part of the Luxury Collection in the Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices portfolio.

The asking price is a healthy appreciation for the $350,000 original owners George Watson Beach and Elizabeth Colt Jarvis Beach reportedly paid for its construction. Elizabeth was a Colt firearms heiress, and businessman George had his fingers in a number of pies, including wool, dyes and manufacturing, according to the Old Saybrook Historical Society.

The couple had their opulent love nest built across two years from stones found around Cornfield Point’s oceanfront and named it Hartlands, after Elizabeth's ancestor Gen. Hart who owned the original property. The 40-room layout was designed by Alfredo S.G. Taylor in the English Tudor Revival style modeled after Newport, "cottages," according to the listing. Toward the end of World War I, the couple leased their house and land for $1 per year to the U.S. Army, who used it as an artillery training site.

Charles Lindbergh's uncle bought Hartlands in 1923, rechristened it Ye Castle Inn, and made the hotel the hub of a lucrative rum-running and bootlegging operation. According to the Old Saybrook Historical Society, the Lindbergh family supplied the shoreline and river towns with liquor and cigarettes from Nova Scotia, Bermuda, the Bahamas and Cuba, until the end of Prohibition in 1933.

The inn would change hands, and names, numerous times throughout the 20th century, and its guestbook overflowed with celebrities. Ethel Barrymore, Howard Hughes, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Ann Sheriden, Don Ameche, and Doris Day all spent some time there, according to Connecticut History. In the 90s, new owners converted the space into a restaurant and banquet facility before selling it to a beach developer for potential use as condos.

The home's "modern era" began in 2007, when the latest owner converted "the castle" back into a private home, and restored some of the building's historical appearance. The residence now boasts 200-plus feet of direct frontage on Long Island Sound at 30 feet above sea level, according to the listing. The stone structure encloses 10 bedrooms, 11 baths, 11 fireplaces, gentleman's smoking room, lavish dining room, gourmet kitchen, 3-story hand carved cherry staircase, in-law apartment with separate amenities, butler's pantry, media room, three laundry rooms and an elevator.

For photos and more information, see the listing here.