Silver screen legend Katharine Hepburn’s former Connecticut home has returned to the market today for $11.8 million.
“The African Queen” star and her family constructed the 8,400- square-foot home in the small town of Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1939, and the actress used it as a summer retreat for the next 65 years, according to a press release Tuesday.
The Hepburns made their mark on the area much earlier though as The New York Times reported that her father, Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a doctor at Hartford Hospital, purchased the original house on the site in 1912. That home, though, was later destroyed by a hurricane.
After the actress died at the age of 96, her family sold the property and some of the surrounding land in 2004 for $6 million to Frank Sciame of Sciame Construction, which fully renovated it the following year.
More From Mansion Global
Mr. Sciame is no stranger to historic renovations, having handled the restoration of New York City landmarks such as the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum and the Guggenheim Museum.
The six-bedroom waterfront property is set on one-and-a-half acres of land and has a private dock where visitors can land seaplanes in front of the house as aviator and film director Howard Hughes did in the 1930s and 1940s.
“The historic Katharine Hepburn home remains the quintessential family estate, featuring an extraordinary renovation that maintains its legacy,” said Colette Harron of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty Essex, the listing agent.
Also listed Tuesday with the same agent is a three-bedroom beach house, asking $5.88 million, that Mr. Sciame built on a separate adjacent parcel of land in 2015. The never-lived-in property comes with 3,800 square feet of living space including four large decks.
The property also has a two-car garage, a large covered golf cart portico, and approval rights for a private dock.
This is not the first time that Mr. Sciame has tried to find a buyer for the two properties, offering them a number of times as a package and separately, at various prices.
According to the release, Hepburn’s former home was last listed in 2014 at $14.8 million, while the beach house was last offered in 2015 at $6.88 million.