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The four-bedroom, three-bath home at 1479 Maiden Lane is listed for $1.5 million. It includes 7.36 acres, 4,836 square feet of living space and views of the nearby Croton Reservoir.
The home is currently owned by Francesca Samsel, a scientific visualization artist. She is affiliated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Texas and currently engaged in a collaborative project the purpose of which is to help people understand environmental change through the use of the arts, including music and the visual arts.
Samsel had a strong influence in the design of the house, which was built in 2006. Leis said the home has contemporary characteristics strongly influenced by Arts and Crafts. “It’s hard to fit into one particular style,’’ Leis said. Characteristics of those types of homes include numerous windows, open floor plans, few hallways and extensive use of natural materials including wood, stone or stucco siding.
Samel’s artistic influence is found throughout the home in Yorktown’s Hunterville neighborhood. She had the house built with authentic materials, including an impressive stone fireplace. The house also includes high ceilings and walls of windows that fill the house with light and provide vistas to the out of doors, everywhere.
The house has been impeccably maintained, with an open floor plan ideal for entertaining, communal area with family room and finely appointed kitchen. The living and dining rooms invite the outdoors into the home through doors out to the extensive patio.
Besides the Croton Reservoir, the home also has captivating vistas of lawns, gardens and woodlands. “There is a sense of place and serenity that very few homes have,” Leis said. “I don’t think everyone will be in tune with it. For those who covet that, this is a magical place.”
Samsel, a longtime resident of Croton, worked on a mural of the flora and fauna of the Croton River estuary at its intersection with the Hudson River. She later found the property on Maiden Lane, where the ice ages sheared granite rock and left behind whaleback hills.
“To say that the property sang to her would be to understate its influence on her award-winning work,’’ Leis said. She was inspired by the mysteries revealed in her explorations for the mural and those increased her awareness of the magic of the mountain top property on Maiden Lane.
Properties such as the Maiden Lane home are getting harder to find, in Yorktown and the rest of the world. Climate change is altering landscapes and their flora and fauna but some very special places still remain. Even in Westchester County.
“It’s important to her to have people see what climate change is and what climate change means,’’ Leis said. “For her, keeping places like this is one of her inspirations.”
For more information, contact Leis at 914-494-4580 or via email at vleis@bestweb.net. Click here for the property listing.
