To Their Health: A Weekend Home on the Bay
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 19, 2006; Page F01
Just added to the luxe listings this week: a slice of Italy on the Chesapeake, for slightly less than $7.8 million.
Washington lawyers Carolyn H. Williams and Aubrey M. Daniel III bought the 132-acre parcel of Easton farmland for $1.2 million in 1989 and then built a 6,000-square-foot weekend house on the water to remind them of Tuscany and Sardinia, where they also have houses.
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The Easton estate, which they dubbed San Sano for "Saint Healthy," is the name of a village in the Chianti region of Italy, Williams said this week. The property was assessed at almost $3.3 million this year.
Williams, a partner with Williams & Connolly LLP, is perhaps best known for representing General Electric Co. in breast-implant litigation and for defending other major corporate clients in big-stakes cases. Daniel, a retired partner at the same firm, first drew national attention in 1971, when, at age 29, he successfully prosecuted Lt. William Calley Jr. for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Daniel's work on that case led law firm titan Edward Bennett Williams, the late founder of the firm that still bears his name, to seek Daniel out when he left the military for private practice. Carolyn Williams is not related to the firm's founder.
While San Sano is in Easton, it's only a five-minute boat ride from St. Michaels, where Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are among those with expensive waterfront estates.
It's the latest of several big Talbot County spreads to go on the market in recent years. A $16.5 million, 54-acre estate, Ellenborough, has been available for about two years. And a five-bedroom, 7 1/2 -bath Tudor, built in 1930 and sitting on 16 acres overlooking Trippes Creek in Oxford, was listed for $10 million three weeks ago by Diana V. Brian, an agent with Lacaze Meredith of Long & Foster in Easton.
Brian and her husband, Earl, a retired doctor and businessman, own the property under the name Edanco Inc. and paid $942,500 for it in 1982. The house, which sits on the actual point of Deepwater Point, was assessed at $5.5 million this year.
San Sano was featured in the October 2004 issue of House Beautiful because of its architecture, which is in the style of 16th-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio and of Palladio disciple Thomas Jefferson. The house was also praised for exterior and interior design work by veteran Washington designer Frank Babb Randolph.
"My husband grew up outside of Charlottesville and was influenced by Thomas Jefferson and Monticello," Williams told the magazine then. The article recounted how Jefferson was influenced by Palladio, how Daniel incorporated their ideas in the initial designs and how the symmetrical, two-story house combines the genres.
The stately cream-colored mansion includes nearly identical front and back porticoes, a 30-foot-tall foyer, wide crown moldings and "a lot of other details copied from things in Italy," Williams said.
It also has an outdoor pool surrounded by a "garden room," a large terrace, five fireplaces in the main house and a sixth fireplace in an office above the garage. The house is hidden from the main road, with access by a long, tree-lined driveway.
The estate includes a vineyard as well as woods and about 90 acres of farmland. Grapes from the vineyard have been sold in the past to friends of the owners who run Little Ashby Vineyards, the first licensed winery on the Eastern Shore.
San Sano is listed for $7,799,000 with agents Doc Keane and Dan Corr, of W.C. & A.N. Miller Cos. in the District.
House.gossip is an occasional look at interesting places owned by interesting people. To let us know about houses worth covering, e-mail us atrealestate@washpost.com.
