Tag Archives: Mt Kisco Homes for Sale

Outrage after NY paper publishes names of gun permit holders | Mt Kisco Homes

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NEW YORK A newspaper’s publication of the names and addresses of handgun permit holders in two New York counties has sparked online discussions — and a healthy dose of outrage.

The Journal News, a Gannett Co. newspaper covering three counties in the Hudson Valley north of New York City and operating the website lohud.com, posted a story Sunday detailing a public-records request it filed to obtain the information.

The 1,800-word story headlined, “The gun owner next door: What you don’t know about the weapons in your neighborhood,” said the information was sought after the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., about 50 miles northeast of the paper’s headquarters in White Plains. A gunman killed his mother, drove to an elementary school and massacred 20 first-graders and six adults, then shot himself. All the weapons used were legally owned by his mother.

The Journal News story includes comments from both sides of the gun-rights debate and presents the data as answering concerns of those who would like to know whether there are guns in their neighborhood. It reports that about 44,000 people in Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties are licensed to own a handgun, and that rifles and shotguns can be purchased without a permit.

It was accompanied online by maps of the results for Westchester and Rockland counties; similar details had not yet been provided by Putnam County. A reader clicking on the maps can see the name and address of each pistol or revolver permit holder. Accompanying text states that inclusion does not necessarily mean that an individual owns a weapon, just who obtained a license.

By Wednesday afternoon, the maps had shared about 30,000 times on Facebook and other social media.

Most online comments have criticized the publication of the data, and many suggest it puts the permit holders in danger because criminals have a guide to places they can steal guns. Others maintain it tells criminals who does not have a gun and may be easier to victimize, or where to find law enforcement figures against whom they might hold a grudge.

Some responded by publicizing the home addresses and phone numbers of the reporter who wrote the piece, along with other journalists at the paper and even senior executives of Gannett. Many echoed the idea that publicizing gun permit holders’ names is tantamount to accusing them of doing something wrong, comparing the move to publishing lists of registered sex offenders.

The Journal News is standing behind the project. It said in the story that it published a similar list in 2006.

“Frequently, the work of journalists is not popular. One of our roles is to report publicly available information on timely issues, even when unpopular,” Janet Hasson, president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group, said in an emailed statement. “We knew publication of the database (as well as the accompanying article providing context) would be controversial, but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.”

Roy Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism think tank, said publishing the data was “too indiscriminate.”

He, too, compared the maps to similar efforts involving sex-offender registries or lists of those arrested for driving under the influence, noting that such a move is usually done to indicate a serious problem that requires a neighbor or parent to maintain vigilance.

“You get the connotation that somehow there’s something essentially wrong with this behavior,” he said of the gun permit database.

“My predisposition is to support the journalism,” Clark said. “I want to be persuaded that this story or this practice has some higher social purpose, but I can’t find it.”

Also common among the comments on the lohud.com were suggestions about suing the paper for violating permit-holders’ privacy rights. Such a move would likely be unsuccessful.

“The media has no liability for publishing public information,” said Edward Rudofsky, a First Amendment attorney at Zane and Rudofsky in New York. The issue does present a clash between First and Second amendment rights, he said, but in general, the law protects publishing public information unless the intent was to harm someone.

via cbsnews.com

6 wrong-headed ideas about remodeling | Mount Kisco NY Homes

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After 30 years in architecture, I still hear the same tired old wives’ tales circulated about remodeling. It’s amazing how long it can take to stamp out a wrong-headed concept. Here are some of my unfavorites:

1. Bathrooms should be planned back to back to save cost. Rubbish. This chestnut goes way back, and probably stems from the practice of placing apartment house bathrooms back to back. You’re not building apartments, however, so the meager savings in plumbing cost — something on the order of a few hundred dollars — doesn’t justify straitjacketing your floor plan with a bathroom arrangement you don’t like.

2. The best way to improve your home’s energy efficiency is by installing new double-glazed windows. Poppycock. In most houses, windows represent a very small fraction of the total heat loss. By far the most heat is lost through ceilings, so attic insulation is the best place to put your energy-efficiency dollars. Once that’s done, consider installing a higher-efficiency furnace and ductwork. Replacing your windows is far down the list of cost-effective energy improvements.

3. Granite is the best choice for kitchen counters. Balderdash. Granite is definitely durable, but it may not make economic sense to install a 100-year countertop on cabinets that will last only 30. In any case, there are lots of other interesting countertop materials out there, from other types of stone slabs, to butcher block, tile, and yes, even plastic laminate. It’s worth taking a look at them before you choose granite by reflex.

4. Skylights are the best way to get daylight into your house. Malarkey. Skylights are a good last resort to improve daylighting, but adding windows should always be your first choice. Why? Because they’re passive solar devices naturally attuned to the seasons, letting in more low-angle sunlight in winter when you want it, and excluding it in summer when you don’t. Skylights do just the reverse. They also look out of place on many styles of homes, particularly those built before World War II.

5. Point-of-use (“tankless”) water heaters are the most efficient way to heat water. Maybe, maybe not. Tankless units can be just the thing for certain applications, such as bathrooms that are remote from the water heater. But their efficiency is typically oversold, with efficiency ratings based on rarified laboratory conditions that are seldom reflected in actual installations. They’re also complex and subject to erratic response under low-flow conditions.

What’s more, if saving space isn’t your primary concern, there are a number of conventional storage water heaters available with efficiencies in the mid-90s, some at surprisingly reasonable cost.

6. Recessed “can” lights are the best way to modernize a home’s lighting. Piffle. Recessed lighting is useful for very specific purposes — highlighting permanent objects or architectural features, for example — but they do a lousy job of general illumination. This is because cans are inherently directional, creating a pool of light beneath them, rather than diffusing light throughout the room. They’re also terribly overused, leading to the notorious “swiss cheese ceiling” effect seen in so many remodeled houses. Be sparing in your use of recessed cans — and if you have a house predating World War II, think twice about using them at all. They’re literally a glaring anachronism in most older homes.

via inman.com

How Much House Can You Get for $725,000? | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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Each week we take a look at how much house you can expect to get at a specific price point. This week, we’re looking at homes priced around $725,000.

San Jose, CA

434 S 15th St, San Jose CA
For sale: $724,950

Craftsman charm abounds in this 1910-built home in San Jose. The 2-bed, 1-bath home includes a home office and formal dining room with built-in storage.

Baltimore, MD

1108 Vineyard Hill Rd, Baltimore MD
For sale: $725,000

A $25,000 price chop puts this Baltimore home in our price bucket. The brick colonial has open floor plan highlights, including vaulted ceilings and a two-story foyer. Measuring 3,448 square feet, the home has 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths.

Fairfield, CT

1502 Round Hill Rd, Fairfield CT
For sale: $725,000

Another colonial, this time in Connecticut, sits on a sprawling landscaped lot. Built in 1950, the Fairfield home makes exceptional use of 1,847 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The newer kitchen has granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and a new pantry.

Phoenix, AZ

3714 E Coolidge St, Phoenix AZ
For sale: $725,000

This 4-bed, 4-bath Phoenix home includes a bonus room that could fit a variety of needs, including nursery, home office or home gym. Sitting on a quarter-acre lot in a desirable neighborhood, the house also includes a lush backyard with patio.

Barrington, RI

93 Rumstick Rd, Barrington RI
For sale: $729,000

This renovated barn-like home in Barrington has spacious and sunny rooms laid out in a 3,081-square-foot floor plan. The 4-bed, 3-bath home is in a convenient location within walking distance to local shops and restaurants.

via zillow.com

Troubleshoot home repairs and save | Mount Kisco NY Real Estate

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Book cover image courtesy of <a href=

Book Review
By the time you see this, I pray that Hurricane Sandy will have wound herself down, giving our East Coast friends and neighbors a moment’s rest before they begin putting their homes and towns back together again. There were many stories of heroism and rescue to come out of this disaster, but one that touched me personally probably failed to make many front pages.

Brooklyn, N.Y., writer Deanna Zandt realized early on in the storm that the wind had blown her home’s fire hatch wide open. In her own words:

“I went to the back of the house, slowly, and noticed light and a breeze coming through the cracks of the doors of my back closet. Opened the doors to find that the lid to the fire escape roof hatch had blown off. Here’s the problem with this whole lid-blowing-off thing: it’s not just the rain. An open window/door/whatever during a hurricane creates a pressurized situation that allows very little wind force to lift a roof right off of the house. Only thing we could do was take turns holding on. Holding on to our roof.”

Zandt and her landlords spent the next six hours — six hours! — taking turns holding their roof down, with a rope; she chronicles her household’s extraordinarily brave, smart and ultimately successful efforts in a comedic/terrifying blog post, here.

MacGyver wouldn’t be proud: He’d be in awe. Zandt detected the issue and was able to heroically avoid true disaster only because she and the others in her household (and some family members from afar) realized it presented a much graver danger, if not dealt with, than it would appear on the surface. They understood how a home works, and that positioned her to hold onto her roof. Literally.

When it’s time to study up on real estate, often in anticipation of buying a home, we tend to focus on the transactional and financial aspects of the experience. We read books and blogs on homebuying; we download lists of interview questions to ask agents; and we fixate on what to offer and when to lock our interest rates. We tend to leave the understanding of the literal nuts and bolts of our properties themselves to the inspectors, investing blind trust in them mostly because in this day and age where we focus on digital information and content, it’s much, much harder to wrap our heads around the physics, engineering, mechanics and myriad moving pieces of what is still legally called “real property.”

But this knowledge is essential — and it doesn’t have to be painful to acquire. I can’t tell you the number of times, as the owner of a home in pretty great condition, I have had to call on my relatively rudimentary knowledge of building basics, acquired through years of selling real estate, reading inspection reports and compacting myself into crawl spaces that my own clients, the owners-to-be, have never been in, alongside the inspectors.

If you are planning to buy or build a single-family home, or you already own one, listen up. I’m about to make a bold statement. You should own this week’s book: “How Your House Works: A Visual Guide to Understanding and Maintaining Your Home,” by Charlie Wing.

“How Your House Works” is precisely what it says it is: a beautifully illustrated, diagram-packed, no-frills guide to every component and system of your home complete with super-short, plain English mini-tutorials that explain each visual.

Don’t be intimidated by the idea of diagrams: Wing, a national home improvement and repair authority, strips back each one to no more than a handful of the most important elements you absolutely need to know to understand the basic function of whatever home system is being covered, from framing to faucets — no more, and no less.

“How Your House Works” is written on two foundational (pardon the pun) assumptions: (a) that most repairs your home will ever need are very, very simple; and (b) that understanding how to fix something requires that you understand how it will work. Wing is not seeking to inspire us each to channel our inner Bob Vila; rather, he’s trying to help us avoid stories like his friend’s, who had to pay a $150 site visit fee for the plumber to pluck a pistachio shell out of the dishwasher, instantly stopping the noise it was making.

Having even a basic understanding of how your home works empowers you to save potentially thousands of dollars during your time in the property on unnecessary repair visits and calls, positions you to speak knowledgeably about what needs to happen with contractors when you do truly need them, and minimizes downtime from supposedly “broken” appliances and systems that might not really require much more than a tightened screw, a replaced bolt or a new washer.

And “How Your House Works” does this, elegantly and manageably, for 10 categories of home elements: pluming, electrical, heating, cooling, air quality, appliances, windows and doors, foundation and frame, outdoors (think: lawnmowers, chainsaws, sprinklers and septic), and a more aspirational section on sustainable home elements, like timed thermostats and solar heating.

So, get this book. If you’re buying a home in an area where many sellers have prelisting inspection reports available, it’s not at all premature to buy the book before you even find “the one”; and it’s certainly not overkill to flip through it before you attend your own home’s inspections or while you’re reading the reports. And homeowners, consider yourself on notice: The knowledge in this book can save you money, drama and in the most dire of circumstances, immeasurably more.

via inman.com

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Property in Westchester County Is for Sale | Mt Kisco Real Estate

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A listing on the Web site of Ginnel Real Estate refers to the three-story, 10,000-square-foot colonial-style home, in the Mount Kisco area, as a “state-of-the-art and eco-friendly country estate” with geothermal heating and cooling, energy-efficient appliances and fiber-optic lighting. It sits on 10 acres on South Bedford Road.

Muffin Dowdle, the agent listed as managing the sale, did not respond to requests for comment.

The names of Mr. Kennedy and his estranged wife, Mary R. Kennedy, appear on a deed for the property, as well as on a record of a $500,000 mortgage taken out on the residence in June 2010.

The Kennedys were embroiled in divorce and child-custody proceedings in the period before Ms. Kennedy’s death. The body of Ms. Kennedy, 52, was found in a barn on the property. The medical examiner said she died of asphyxiation after hanging herself.

via nytimes.com