No, ,Mark, I live about a mile from the Sound. I'd reckon that home and lot will be worth 1.5 to 2.5 mil.
About 8 yrs ago, I did some work at a home on the east side of Lake Washington, one of the few sites on that side of the lake with a Mt Rainier view. The lot, maybe 1 acre, had sold for $7 million! The new owners sold the very nice house, which was barged off..and built an unassuming place that cost about 1.5 mil to build...plus 500K for the landscape! Likely it is now worth 15+ mil.
About three years ago, just south of Bill Gate's compound, a single home with only two additional buildings on site plus a huge covered dock, hit the market for about $45mm! The owner had died in plane crash. I had also worked at that place.....lucky perhaps, as much of our work is for the average client, homes worth well under $750K.
I just did a bit of work at the construction site where I shot these pics, was referred by the folks below, for whom I do a lot of work. Their fir tree row peeking up was topped 10 or so years ago and is just recovering. I'm sure the new folks will ask us to retop them in a couple years. I should be able to carefully do so and have them look adequate. I already had to do the south third of the row,for the neighbors above on that end. (Had to go a couple feet lower than I liked.) Aargh...fir hedges are hard to do and not as tidy looking as hemlock or cedar.
Today, we did more view clearing on a slope for a young trust funder yuppie (or who inherited the awesome place)...It is just south of The Highlands, one of the most exclusive gated communites anywhere in the world. He has an easily 200 yards wide view lot that is only blocked from being waterfront by the railroad tracks. We've darn near clearcut large portions of the slope of junk alder. Remove some maple, almost coppiced some,(hard crown reduced) and thinned a few. In a few years, he's leveling and terracing it and installing huge bulkheads that will stabilyze the slope. This will likely be a .5 to 1 mm $ project. The house is modest, but the lot is worth a fortune.
In their spare time, when not lounging by the pool, they hit bidegradeable golf balls way out into the sound-- it is at least 200 yards to the water...and 150 feet down.
