BUYER: Curt and Sabelle Frasca
LOCATION: Palisades, NY
PRICE: $3,300,000
SIZE: 4,340 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to The ever-busy Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial it's come to Your Mama's attention that legendary Showbiz veteran Al Pacino has quietly sold off a significant portion of his Hudson River view compound in Palisades, NY, the prosperous, postage stamp-sized enclave also and formerly known as the Snedens Landing. The existing residence on the multi-acre spread functioned as the guesthouse to Mister Pacino's primary residence next door. More on that in a minute.
Although Mister Pacino first listed his guesthouse property in April 2012 with a $4,499,000 asking price, records show the bluff-top property was sold in mid-March 2013 for $3,300,000 to successful songwriters and music producers Curt and Sabelle Frasca. Missus Frasca, whose father is the venerable avant garde artist Robert Breer, has worked with folks like Madonna, Avril Lavigne and Ryan Cabrera. Mister Frasca's clientele is a virtual who's who of music industry: Shep Pettibone, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Michael and Janet Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Patti Labelle, Cyndi Lauper, the Spice Girls, Prince, Moby and k.d. lang. The couple currently own and operate Verse Music Group.
Mister Al Pacino is, well, he's goddamn Al Pacino, a famously intense, virile and still working actor of international acclaim with one Oscar statuette under his septuagenarian belt for the magnificent film Scent of a Woman plus seven more nominations (Glengarry Glen Ross, Dick Tracy, ...And Justice for All, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Godfather, and The Godfather: Part II). In addition to his silver screen accolades the method actor has also received a couple of Tony Awards (Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel) and in 1996 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the well-received Shakespeare-oriented documentary Looking for Richard.
Listing details Your Mama dug up out of the depth of the internets show the property sprawls "over 3 magnificent private acres." However and vexingly the same listing also puts the lot size at 108,900, an amount that's equal to exactly 2.5 acres. Make of that discrepancy what you will. However large the property it formed the bulk of Mister Pacino's Palisades roughly 3.5 acre compound and in addition to a soccer pitch-sized lawn, a large gravel motor court and a couple of outbuildings of undetermined function, the river view property has a 4,340 square foot clapboard-sided house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. We learned this morning from our occasional aide de camp B.S. Beaverman that way back in 2002 an accidental fire broke out in one of the upstairs bedrooms that resulted in "heavy smoke and water damage to the second floor of the guesthouse." We love the bit about how Mister Pacino's publicist and the fire chief both declined to identify the guests. Anyways...
The residence was originally built in 1941, according to listing details, and sits at the top of steep slope that tumbles down to the shore of the mighty Hudson River. As best as we can tell from a quick study of the plat map, the property does not have any direct frontage on the river.
A tightly curved stairway in the residence's upper level foyer descends to the main living and entertaining spaces on the lower level. The rustic, wide plank wood floors in the spacious dining room continue into but change direction in the voluminous adjoining sunken living room that's warmed by a fireplace and light flooded through over-sized windows and French doors on three sides.
Listing photographs don't show the kitchen but it's described in listing details as "immaculate" with an eat-in capability and "modern conveniences." The master suite, also not depicted in listing photos, "sparkles with sunlight from beautiful picture windows." One or more of the upper level bedrooms—one hopes it's the master, right?—opens to a perfectly charming veranda that hangs over the lower level terrace off the living room and provides a bird's nest vantage for viewing the river.
As it turns out, this is second time Mister Pacino has sold a house in Palisades in the last few years. In November 2010 he dumped a much more modest but still fully fenced and electronically gated 1,578 square foot house with three bedrooms and 1.5 bathroom for $580,000.
Teeny-tiny Snedens Landing/Palisades is or has been home to a slew of high-profile Tinseltown types. Emmy-nominated actor Aiden Quinn owns one of the more modest homes in Palisades and Oscar-nominated actor Bill Murray owns a sprawling 15,000+ square foot river view mansion with a dozen bathrooms on more than 8 acres. Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy nominated actress Lorraine Bracco sold her riverfront residence in August 2009 for $2.7 million to Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio and delightfully quirky Icelandic singer Björk sold her Palisdes pad in early 2010 for $1,325,000.
In September 2011, ballet icon Mikhail Baryshnikov sold two the four parcels that comprised his Palisades compound for $3,485,000 to a New York City-based hedge fund fat cat. Property records show Mister B. still owns just over two acres of the original compound where there's a two bedroom and two bathroom cottage that he had up for lease back in 2009 for $4,500 per month. Mister B. and his ballerina wife, Lisa Rinehart, own another property in Palisades formerly owned by Oscar winning actor William Hurt.
Some of Mister Pacino and now Mister and Missus Frasca's nearest neighbors include distinguished journalist Joan Konner and and sick-rich and low-profile Mellon family heiress Andrea Currier whose fabulously wealthy parents vanished into thin air in 1967 while en route via a small chartered airplane from San Juan, Puerto Rico to St. Thomas on the U.S. Virgin Islands.
listing photos: Keller Williams Hudson Valley