Escrow: Record-Setting Digs In Luxe Tuxedo Park

Chroniclers of primetime real estate in the Hudson Valley know that some of the best stuff is tucked inside the private and gated Orange County enclave of Tuxedo Park, NY.

Here, on 2,050 lushly verdant acres with three pristine lakes and some 330 homes, you’ll find Gilded Age Queen Annes, Newport-style “cottages,” French chateaus, grand Tudor mansions and modern Mediterraneans. Many of the private estates have lush landscaping, tennis courts and pool houses that match the elegant architecture of the main house. Some compare the community to Lake Como in Italy and the Lake District in England.

And yes, the modern evening wear known as the tuxedo was named for Tuxedo Park in the late 19th century, when several of its gentlemen residents began wearing the tail-less formalwear first seen on London’s Savile Row. 

One of the grandest estates in Tuxedo Park, a 1928 French Provincial known as Renamor, has been listed for $29.5 million. At 151 acres, it’s the largest parcel ever listed for sale in the historic community. And it’s the first time the home at 120 Ridge Road has hit the market in more than three decades.

“I love the architecture,” says listing agent Richard Ellis, of Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty. “It’s kind of a very simple style, with beautiful rustic doors and finishes and a grand entry hall with hand-hewn beams. It’s a very, very useable house—it’s not some rambling old house with so many bedrooms that are never used,” he says. The former ten bedrooms on the second floor have been refashioned into a handful of manageable suites.

Amenities include two swimming pools, a tennis court, a five-car garage, a wine cellar, a secluded log cabin, a boathouse on Tuxedo Lake and a third-floor gym.

Other outbuildings include a six-bedroom guesthouse from the 1930s and a 4,700-square foot, two-bedroom carriage house. In total, there are 16 bedrooms, 20 bathrooms and 19 fireplaces. Distinctive architectural details in the fully renovated 14,000-square-foot main house include a stone and stucco façade, a steep hip roof with clay tiles, period ironwork and ceilings with decorative plaster work.

The estate was built for George S. and M. Renee Carhart Amory, whose blended names inspired the estate’s moniker. Most recently, it was the longtime home of the late Robert S. Dow, an Olympic fencer and prominent investment manager, and his wife, former asset manager Christina Seix Dow. Their daughter, Lindsey Dow, is managing the sale.

The main house features a dramatic great hall, a grand salon, a cozy wood-paneled library, a banquet-sized dining room, an octagon-shaped former chapel, a large modern kitchen and a “fumoir,” where gentlemen smoked after dinner.

Aside from the historic grandeur, one of my favorite features is that the estate is almost completely off the grid. Dow invested $1 million to install geothermal heating and cooling and an array of solar panels that power the entire estate.

Home prices in Tuxedo Park continue to escalate, Ellis says. Prior to 2020, the “sweet spot to get a good home in the Park was between $1.5 and $3 million. Today the sweet spot is more like $2 to $4 million.”

real estate roundup: 

• In the Berkshires, the overall dollar volume of real estate sales in the first three quarters of this year was $549 million, a ten percent increase over 2024, according to the Berkshire County Board of Realtors. The number of transactions rose three percent compared to the same period last year.

• So far this year in Litchfield County, CT, the dollar volume for closed sales was just higher than $770 million, a seven percent increase over 2024, and the average price for single-family homes rose six percent, to $602,112, according to a Q3 report from William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. Some good news for home shoppers—inventory is up three percent.