The owners of two side-by-side homes on Straws Point Road, purchased for a combined $33.5 million in recent years, plan to demolish both structures and build a new oceanside estate.
Longtime Rye residents Mary Lou and Peter LeSaffre are seeking town approval to demolish their multimillion-dollar residences. In December 2022, the couple bought a three-bedroom, five-bathroom house at 30 Straws Point Road for $25 million — a state record-setting price for a single-family home. Last August, they purchased the neighboring home at 36 Straws Point Road for $8.5 million in an off-market transaction.
The LeSaffres plan to raze both existing structures to build a new single-family home, said Mary Lou LeSaffre, a philanthropist, retired real estate attorney and former nurse. The new home will be modeled off a “French country manor” and will span approximately 8,500 square feet. A new pool house will be built in addition to a new carriage house, all of which will be built between the two lots while much of the remaining acreage will be left open.
No redevelopment proposals have been filed with the Rye building department, though the town has received demolition applications from the LeSaffres for the two properties. The LeSaffres’ future home is being designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects in New York City, according to Mary Lou LeSaffre.
“This is our final home. It’ll be beautiful,” she said. “We have the same landscape architects, Reed Hilderbrand, who are very famous for their landscape design. It’s not a vast home. It’s low to the ground. The design is like a country manor. It’s all stone. The interior is classical French design. It’s not a looming home.”
Demolition applications for the two single-family home properties were received by the town building department on Jan. 10.
Read the full story at Portsmouth Herald.
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