The Dutchess County property of Michelle-Marie Heinemann includes an elaborately decorated, roughly 32,000-square-foot home with an art gallery; ‘tiny homes’ for staff in upstate New York
Socialite Michelle-Marie Heinemann said she spent two decades creating an elaborate estate in Dutchess County, N.Y. Now she’s looking to sell her creation for $30 million.
In Wappingers Falls, Ms. Heinemann purchased a 6,000-square-foot house for $440,000 in 1998 and expanded it to more than 32,000 square feet. Now it includes nine bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, five half-bathrooms, two libraries, a basketball court, a three-story solarium and an art gallery. “It’s been like a little baby in a cradle,” she said. “It’s been loved, adored and respected and, as a result, it’s grown.”
The home is decorated in extravagant French-inspired furnishings. The dining room is clad in French powder-blue oak paneling, with a cloud mural by the family portrait artist on the ceiling. The velvet chairs have lavender tassels and bullion, and the walls are adorned with portraits of her young children. “Color and texture move me. That’s how I decorate,” she said.
The solarium features 35-feet-tall bulletproof glass walls and one of the roughly seven pianos in the home. The furniture isn’t included in the sale. Ms. Heinemann, who is also an artist, displays her giant flower-tree sculptures in the garden and plans to donate them when the house sells, she said.
The staff lives in three so-called “tiny houses” on the roughly 25-acre property. The homes, which range in size from 550 to 675 square feet, were commissioned by Ms. Heinemann after she came across the “tiny home” phenomenon on a trip to Switzerland. The homes must be decorated in a minimalist fashion, since they are so small. “I had to exercise a lot of restraint,” she said.
Ms. Heinemann is the founder of a lifestyle brand called Old Fashioned Mom, which she said aims to apply old-fashioned values of traditional motherhood while remaining “au courant” in a modern world. The New York-based company produces a magazine and a video series, and plans to open coffee shops in New York City and London’s Mayfair neighborhood, Ms. Heinemann said.
Ms. Heinemann said she is selling because she wants to spend more time in New York and London. “We have loved this house, but life is about growing and evolving,” she said.
