After 20 years, Harry Connick Jr. lists rustic Connecticut estate for $7.5M

Singer and actor Harry Connick Jr. and his wife, former Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre, bought this 4.6-acre Connecticut estate, a former dairy farm, in 1998 for $1.54 million. After a two-year renovation and nearly 20 years raising their three daughters here, the couple has decided to part ways with the rustic New Canaan home, listing it for $7.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The seven-bedroom main house, once a barn built in the 1890s, is joined by a heating pool and pool house, another former barn that serves as a gym and storage, and a third smaller barn where Connick writes music.

Connick told the Journal that they decided to purchase the home, located about 50 miles outside of Manhattan, “to stretch out a little bit” somewhere “out of the limelight” and that they liked the hilltop setting. But now that their girls are 15, 19, and 21, he’s ready “to try something new,” noting that he and Goodacre love architecture and design.

This passion for design projects is clear: During the renovation of the 11,600-square-foot main home, the couple used the original structure’s chestnut to make doors and counters and historic steps that once led to a stream on the site to built a granite fireplace surround, which serves as the focal point for the grand living room with its 25-foot-high ceilings.

They also used stones from the property to create the floor-to-ceiling fireplace in the screened-in porch, where the family likes to make fires in the evening.

In the master bedroom, there’s another fireplace and French doors that lead to a balcony.

Though the couple hasn’t said where they plan to move, they have many fond memories of the New Canaan house, like the “barn parties” they used to throw or the sing-alongs they’d have while Connick played one of his two grand pianos–though he says the one in the kitchen “gets played a little bit more” than the one in the living room since that’s where they spend most of their time.

[Via WSJ]

[Listing: 671 West Road by April Kaynor and Kelly DeFrancesco of William Raveis Real Estate]

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Photos via Retoolz for William Raveis Real Estate