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The background of the undisclosed owner explains the odd offer, as well as their willingness to accept bitcoin or Ethereum crypto in exchange for the 4.3-acre farmhouse compound on Bedford Road, which dates from the early 1800s.
In an interview with CNBC, the property's listing agent, Kevin Sneddon of Compass, said, "It's not like a gimmick."
"Not only does my client have a lot of cryptocurrencies, but she actively trades a considerable amount of it on a daily basis," Sneddon said.
If a buyer of the property uses cryptocurrency to pay for the estate as opposed to cash — which remains an option for payment — the seller would be accepting a risk of further significant decline in the price if she did not immediately sell off the crypto for cash.
In recognition of that risk, a number of prior real-estate listings that have entailed cryptocurrency have required the buyer to convert the crypto to cash before the sale closes.
But the listing for this property makes crystal clear, in all-capital-letters type at the end of the description of the estate: “SELLER WILL ACCEPT CRYPTOCURRENCY.”
"She's not going to sell it and change it into something else," Sneddon remarked. "She'll include it in her cryptocurrency portfolio."
Sneddon thinks that the property's state-of-the-art facilities will entice a buyer, and that his seller's willingness to take digital currency as payment would draw freshly minted crypto billionaires to his listing.
He explained, "They'd want to come up and look at this house since we accept their currency."
"I've already been asked what type of crypto she'd take," Sneddon said.
The fact that the Greenwich property's seller will take cryptocurrency as payment at closing has drew further attention to the historic house in the form of press and queries from interested purchasers.
But, according to Sneddon, his "private-minded" seller isn't interested in any of the extra attention.
He remarked of the purchase, "They wouldn't want their names out there."
According to the Multiple Listings Network, the property was last sold in 2009 for $5.68 million.
Bedford Road Holdings, a limited liability corporation, bought it, according to records. LLCs are frequently formed to conceal the true owners of real estate.
Beard worked for Morgan Stanley for a long time. He was employed in 1977 to create the investment bank's private client services section, according to the firm's website.
The property for sale is located in Greenwich's northwestern reaches, about 200 feet from Connecticut's border with New York state.
The equestrian countryside, as Sneddon characterized it, is an area of town where neighbors have their third, fourth, or even fifth homes set aside for weekend vacations.
The Levi Ireland House, at 241 Bedford Road, was erected in 1835 and is a Greenwich-designated landmark, according to the agency.
A carriage house with three bedrooms, a one-bedroom guest cottage, and an antique barn are also on the site.
The interior of the "party barn," as it's referred to in the listing, remains unfinished and has been connected for electricity.
"There aren't many 187-year-old farmhouses with as many modern conveniences as the Levi Ireland House," Sneddon added.
In other words, while Andrew Jackson was president, a lot has changed on the estate.
"It includes Lutron lighting and automated shades, as well as Porsche pinhole recessed lighting," says the owner.
Sneddon said his customer informed him the German carmaker-designed lamps cost her $2,800 per light and that the Covid-19 outbreak motivated many of her high-tech purchases.
His crypto-trading customer and her family spent much of their time in Manhattan prior to the epidemic, but when New York was shut down, they escaped to their Greenwich house.
When the weeks stretched into months, his client decided to convert the home, which had previously only been used as a weekend retreat, into a full-time abode where she and her family could live and work.
The homeowner also installed a virus-killing infrared air filter and a Covid-inspired heating and cooling system.
