There goes the neighborhood!

Imagine the loud parties this summer

By Will Collette

From the Westerly Tax Assessor database

As if we needed further reminders that the 1% are not like the rest of us, country music diva Taylor Swift just paid the all-time record price for a Rhode Island property - $17.75 million for a “summer house” in Westerly.

The property is located at 16 Bluff Avenue. The former owner, James M. Benson, originally bought the 10,000 square foot home in May 1996 for $3.5 million. 

The house has seven bedrooms and nine full baths. It sits on five and a quarter acres of prime ocean front in Watch Hill.

Selling at more than 500% of the last purchase price confirms what some real estate agents have been saying for quite a while, and that’s that the real estate bust of 2007 to the present had little effect on the high end properties.

Ms. Swift was willing to pay substantially more (+40%) than the current assessed value of the property, which was $12,415,400.

The deal was closed on Friday, April 26, according to TMZ. No word yet on when she plans to move in, or whether she plans to hold an open house for all of us to come over with a covered dish and a six-pack to say howdy.

Also no word yet on whether she has any plans to play at Rhythm and Roots on Labor Day weekend, now that the festival has been saved from being snuffed by the CCA Party’s pandering to its own 1% constituency.

Doubt that you’ll see Ms. Swift pushing her own grocery cart at McQuades. Or Job Lot.

Screen captures from Google Earth(c)