The Batterymarch Insider
Batterymarch Group LLC is a full service independent real estate brokerage firm specializing in the downtown Boston market. “The Batterymarch Insider” is a brief snapshot of our current market thinking. These are our opinions, so take them with a grain of salt. As always, our “terms of use” apply. We encourage you to subscribe.
A Beacon Hill Power Move Gone Wrong?
11 Chestnut Street – Splish, Splash – A Power Move Gone Wrong? – Offered at $9.7 Million
11 Chestnut Street, a 6,500 square foot 4-bedroom single family home situated at the top of Chestnut Street, has been on the market for 80 days with an asking price of $9.7 million ($1,470/sf). The house was fully renovated back in 2018 by a well-respected general contractor.
What’s unique about this property is the fact that the seller installed a swimming pool in the basement as part of the 2018 renovation. We assume that there was a therapeutic reason for the pool, or maybe the seller just wanted to have pool parties and splash around in the basement with his friends?
There are endless reasons why having a swimming pool in the basement of your Beacon Hill townhouse is a terrible idea. High on our list would be the smells associated with indoor pools. Who wants their house to smell like a water treatment plant?
Absent the swimming pool, this is a nice Beacon Hill home in a great location. The quality of the renovation appears to be good, but buyers should take note that the renovation is nearly seven years old and starting to get a little long in the tooth. On our visit we noted several potentially significant condition issues that should be explored further.

We found the kitchen/dining area to be somewhat disappointing and the layout awkward. There’s no parking, and the elevator doesn’t stop on the top floor. Taking an elevator up three flights, getting off and lugging it up the final flight of stairs defeats the point of the elevator.
At $9.7 million, the valuation isn’t completely unreasonable. The problem is the pool. Throwing the pool into the mix dramatically reduces the appeal of the property. To us the swimming pool seems like someone’s idea of a “power move” gone horribly wrong. Given the future liquidity concerns (pardon the pun), we see fair market value in the neighborhood of $8.0 million
11 Chestnut Street is offered by Leading Edge Real Estate
Well Bought/Well Sold
2 Spruce Street – Nice House with an Interesting Provenance – Well Bought
2 Spruce Street has found a new owner. The 6,205 square foot 4-bedroom single family Beacon Hill home recently changed hands for $5.975 million ($963/sf). The property runs between Chestnut Street and Branch Street, with the main entrance on Spruce Street.
Being an end block property, the house has exposures on three sides with over 50 windows. The biggest knock on the property relates to the size of the lot, which is roughly 87 feet long and only 16 ½ feet wide. Long narrow houses have a railroad car feeling. Additionally, there isn’t an elevator or parking.
The property has an interesting provenance. The seller was Emerson College, who bought the property back in 2011 as a residence for the college President and a place to shake down high-rollers for donations. Fear not, while the tony townhouse was sold, Emerson’s President is still living in the lap of luxury in a condominium that the college recently bought at the Ritz Carlton on Avery Street.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, real estate tycoon and publisher Mortimer “Mort” Zuckerman called 2 Spruce Street home. Prior to Mort’s ownership, this was the residence of Princess Luciana Pignatelli, a title derived from the Kingdom of Aragon, with lineage going back to Pope Innocent XII.
Having 50 plus windows makes up for the narrowness of the house. Living in a six-story house without an elevator, together with no parking, are bigger issues in our book. We think that the sale price was reasonable and more than offsets the short comings. Mort Zuckerman has a great eye for real estate; if it was good enough for Mort and European royalty, we’re calling it – Well Bought.
25 Beacon St. unit 3 – Great Unit, Mediocre Location – Well Sold
Unit 3 at 25 Beacon Street has a new owner with a final sale price of $10.975 million ($3,057/sf). The 3,590 square foot 3-bedroom condominium comes with two valet onsite garage parking spots and a live in superintendent/concierge.
Located next to the Massachusetts State House, 25 Beacon was formerly the headquarters of the Unitarian Church. The 2017 redevelopment includes 25 Beacon (six units), two townhouses located on Mount Vernon Place, and an underground parking garage. The finishes are about as good as they get for a spec development, but they fall short of custom building.
25 Beacon is a long, end of block building, measuring about 32 feet wide and 130 feet long. Units in long buildings often have long hallways, which are frowned upon in architecture as they lend themselves to the hospital corridor effect.
Getting from the living room to the primary bedroom is via 84 feet of straight hallway lined with 18 doors. It’s not ideal, but you’ll get your steps in. The upside is that the unit has 15 windows, 13 of which look out over the State House lawn and the Boston Common; it’s a great setting.
Our gripe with the location relates to the fact that you’re on the outskirts of Beacon Hill. While it’s a convenient walk to the financial district, walking to the heart of Beacon Hill is a trek, and it’s a solid 30-minute walk to the Back Bay. Getting there by car is also tricky and entails navigating the congestion around the State House.

Apparently, this was a quasi-off market transaction, where the broker had a deal in hand prior to listing the property in MLS. Listing pre-arranged transactions in MLS is a violation of MLS rules as it misrepresents the days on market. In this case, the property was only “on the market” for two days. Some brokers engage in this kind of activity for market share bragging rights – as we see it, it’s an intentional manipulation of market data.
The asking price for the unit was $10.75 million and the final sale came in at $10.975. It’s our understanding that this was not a bidding war, but the final price included additional personal property (furniture). If you back out the nearly quarter million dollars for the furniture, that drops the sale price to just under $3,000/sf.
High quality 3,500 square foot units on a single floor with two onsite garage parking spaces are unicorns in the Back Bay/Beacon Hill. At just under $3,000/sf, this is pushing the high-end of market correct, but not unreasonable. Until recently, this area of Beacon Hill was largely commercial and, in our opinion, it’s not an ideal residential location. For that reason, we’re calling it – Well Sold.
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About Batterymarch Group LLC – Batterymarch Group is an independent full service real estate brokerage and advisory firm focused on the downtown Boston high-end residential market. We represent buyers with a sharp focus on valuation. We also offer sub-advisory and owner’s representation services to financial institutions, family offices, and trustees.
About Andrew Haigney – A 25-year Wall Street veteran, Andrew held senior positions at leading global investment banking institutions where he routinely valued and negotiated complex securities transactions on behalf of institutional clients. Andrew has been an outspoken advocate of a universal fiduciary standard. In founding Batterymarch Group, Andrew brings that same discipline and passion to real estate brokerage.
Your piece on this house sounds like you may be upset you were not the listing agent. I have experienced that pool and the adjacent steam room and there are no fumes or smells of chlorine in the air or in the rest of the house. Do you honestly think that a person that spent serious money to create such a lavish space wouldn’t have considered the HVAC requirements to make sure the pool area and home are free of chlorination odors? Think before you write such bad comments, you sound like a jealous agent.
These reports and commentaries are universally readable and enjoyable and full of information that is not only applicable to the homes and sites described, but is transferable, as well, to general topics of the trade! So well done, Sir.