Earlier this month the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) announced that Ron Howard and his wife Cheryl have decided to list their 32 acre lakefront estate in Greenwich, CT.
For $27.5 million, YOU can be the new owner of Opie Taylor’s tasteful home on the banks of Converse Lake, an hour outside the hustle and bustle of New York City. Ron’s beautiful estate boasts a 17,000 square foot main house, 2,500 square foot guest house overlooking the lake, and a “sports barn” (fully equipped with a full-size tennis court, half basketball court, and hot tub).
Now those are just a few of the features you can find on his property—If I wanted to go on I would mention the greenhouse, livestock and horse barns, paddocks and riding rings, flower and vegetable gardens, and the hiking trails. I guess now that I’m already on the subject of how ridiculously awesome this estate is, I will indeed go on. You must know about the impressive collection of animals Ron and his wife have raised on the property as well. Whether you fancy cats, dogs, miniature horses, donkeys, sheep, alpacas, chickens, ducks, fish, birds or even tortoises— there’s an animal here for you.
If you were wondering by what method of design did The Howards develope a property with such diverse and ingenious features, then look no further— the method they employed was the “what if?” method. It went something like this— Ron and Cheryl glance up at a ridge perched above one end of their property while heading out to feed their tortoise (Ralph) and say, “What if we were to build an observatory up there with a professional-grade Meade telescope for star-gazing?”, and then boom, a year or so later there it is!
To quote Ron on this style of home development, “Everything kept evolving. We built it, and then said ‘how about this, how about that?”
Certain elements of this property were actually inspired by some of Mr. Howard’s films. For instance—the indoor saltwater pool is almost identical to the one seen in his 1985 movie “Cocoon”. Even though there isn’t much hair left on his head nowadays Ron is still red haired (along with the rest of his family), so an indoor pool just made sense. “We’re all redheads, so we don’t need to bake in the sun,” he said.
The Howards decided to sell their “home base” of homes now that all their children are moved out and Ron and Cheryl are constantly on the road—mainly jet-setting between their other homes in Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Paris. Ron stated that in this later portion of his career he is seeking projects that are more adventuresome and will take him to far corners of the world. Currently he is shooting a film in the U.K and Spain’s Canary Islands, so I guess it is safe to say he is doing just that.
Well done Ron, well done. Your life is truly one worth writing about.
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