A Westchester County estate connected to Johnny Carson, the Amelia Bedelia children’s book series, and MTV hit the market asking $5.3 million this week.
Carson, who hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years and died in 2005, bought the house at 7 Puritan Road in Rye in 1959, the New York Post reported. Fritz Siebel, the illustrator known for the Amelia Bedelia books, lived there until 1982.
The sellers are art collectors Rick and Monica Segal, who bought the 1.9-acre estate from Siebel for $800,000. They are asking $534 per square foot for the 9,900-square-foot home. Rick Segal is the founder of Seavest Investment Group, which rebranded as Rethink Impact in 2022.
Christy Murphy of William Pitt Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.
The Colonial-style manor, built in 1928, has wraparound covered terraces, high ceilings, large windows and built-in shelves. There’s a cozy custom office with a fireplace (the house has seven), plus a pool, spa, sauna, sports court and gym. It has six bedrooms and seven-and-a-half bathrooms
The Segals own more than 1,000 contemporary art works that are on loan to museums, and some will be auctioned by Christie’s soon, the outlet said.
In 2009, their home in Rye was the setting for an episode of Teen Cribs.
The estate is still known as “the Carson Ballfield” locally, because kids used to play baseball there when Carson owned it.
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When he lived in the house, Carson was the host of ABC-TV’s hit show Who Do You Trust? He moved to Los Angeles in 1972, a decade after taking over as host of The Tonight Show. In L.A., he met and married his second wife, Joanne Carson, who is portrayed by Molly Ringwald in the FX show Feud: Capote vs. the Swans.
— Rachel Stone