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Kirsten Gillibrand was in Washington, D.C., this week as the 110th Congress began work on its ambitious agenda, but Jonathan Gillibrand said the house is being sold so that the family can be closer to relatives in Albany, Troy and Latham. The Gillibrands have a son, Theo, 3.
Also this week, the congresswoman's staff said she will soon sign an agreement for a district office in Hudson.
The Gillibrands bought their Mount Merino home in July 2003 and vacated their apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side to become full-time residents the following summer. Last summer, Kirsten Gillibrand's opponent, then-incumbent Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, raised the Gillibrands' residence as a campaign issue, based on tax bills that appeared to indicate the couple still lived in New York City. The issue evaporated as it became clear the Gillibrands lived in Greenport.
The main house on Mount Merino Road, a center-hall colonial, was built in 1933. An addition built several years before the Gillibrands moved in brings the total floor area to 3,500 square feet. There is a separate three-room guest house.
While there is no frontage on the river, the house is built on a bluff and has a panoramic view of the Hudson River and the Catskills.
"The interesting thing about this one is when we look back at how much they bought it for," said a Hudson real estate broker, who asked not to be identified. "People in Hudson remember when it was $345,000 10 or 12 years ago. I think (the Gillibrands) bought it for around a million."
The actual purchase price was $900,000, according to Jonathan Gillibrand, who said the asking price of $1,995,000 was set by the real estate broker handling the listing.
"It's never easy to juggle two careers and your children, and basically we want to make life a little easier," Jonathan Gillibrand said. "Thank goodness for the large scale of Kirsten's family. We are going to have to rely on that traditional family model of everyone helping out."
Jonathan Gillibrand said his wife will work out of the Hudson office when she's not in Washington. Consequently, he said, northern Columbia and Rensselaer County are the areas where they are most likely to look for a new home.
In the meantime, they have rented what Jonathan Gillibrand describes as "a small, modern apartment" in Arlington, Va.
When Sweeney alleged during the campaign that the Gillibrands used the Mount Merino property only as a weekend home and that they still lived in Manhattan, the Gillibrands produced a letter from the rental agent for their former York Avenue apartment stating they had vacated the building in 2004. Greenport Assessor Henry Greenhouse confirmed the family had been full-time residents on Mount Merino Road for at least two years.
The 20th Congressional District, which includes all of Columbia and Greene counties, stretches from central Dutchess County to the Adirondacks. It also reaches west into Delaware County.
