How a dream house became a sober house

By Joe Kelly

People often buy homes that turn out to be too small. 

But the opposite scenario—getting stuck with a house that’s too big—can be even more problematic. It’s never fun trying to unload a property that’s bleeding you dry with taxes, utilities and a jumbo mortgage. 

That very story has been playing out for years on Ashpohtag Road involving the mansion built by the Hollywood director and producer Michael Karbelnikoff. The house at the base of Bald Mountain has been mostly vacant since its construction in 2002, ultimately ending up in foreclosure. But now in an unexpected twist, the house has gone from money loser to profit center. What started out as one man’s dream house has now become a sober house—an outpost in Norfolk of the Mountainside Treatment Center on Route 7 in Canaan.

Entranced by New England

It all started simply enough. A year before the release of one of his biggest projects—the 1991 film “Mobsters” with Christian Slater—Michael Karbelnikoff was visiting family in Great Barrington and became entranced by the New England landscape. Within months he was the proud owner of a 19th-century farmhouse on 12.9 acres off Ashpohtag Road in Norfolk. Renovations quickly followed, but it wasn’t long before Karbelnikoff sensed that he wanted more. With his second marriage and family blossoming , he started imagining a home more modern and palatial, luxurious, something with some Hollywood panache, yes, but would also fit into the wooded scene along Ashpohtag and offer a worthy complement to Bald Mountain rising in the background

And so was born one of the largest private homes built in Norfolk in years—a 10,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, five-bath, no-holds-barred architectural extravaganza held up by a custom steel infrastructure and including an indoor pool, sauna, hot tub, Boffi-designed kitchen, dance studio, wet bar, a covered mahogany deck, multiple fireplaces, a huge third floor master suite and massive windows all around. At night, the house seemed to light up the entire mountain.

Family Dynamics Changed

But while construction was underway, the family dynamics changed, and in the end there’s no house big enough to contain a marriage that’s falling apart. What was envisioned as a  weekend Shangri-la became the house no one wanted. 

A quick sale would have meant an immediate loss. So, to offset the carrying costs—Norfolk real estate taxes on the property before the 2008 market crash hit $57,102 a year—the house was rented out as a wedding and party venue. But the noise and traffic drew the ire of neighbors. 

When the real estate markets began to recover, the house was listed for as high as $3.4 million, but nothing panned out. Ultimately, it went into foreclosure and sold for $1.4 million in 2020, during the Covid pandemic. 

A Mysterious Buyer

The buyer was identified as MY CT OASIS LLC. Based in an attorney’s office in Danbury, MC CT OASIS was set up to lease the property to the Mountainside Treatment Center in Canaan, which wanted it as part of its extended residential treatment program, i.e., a sober house.

“Sober house” is a catchall name for facilities designed for anyone who has gone through treatment and either chooses or is required to live for a specified period of time (often 30-90 days) in a completely drug and alcohol free environment supported by others who are also in recovery. 

Sober houses are part of a range of services now offered at Mountainside, which started out in the 1970s focused on alcoholism and has evolved into a comprehensive treatment center for a wide range of substance abuse issues. Today, according to reports on file with the Connecticut State Office of Health Strategy, Mountainside is a $30-million operation, treating 900-1,000 patients annually at an average cost of $1,700 per day. Once a nonprofit, Mountainside since 2010 has been completely for-profit—patients are on either private insurance or self-pay.

Immune to Local Zoning

It’s estimated there are well over 200 sober houses in Connecticut—no one really knows for sure because they are not regulated. While Mountainside (like any healthcare facility in Connecticut) must obtain approval from the Office of Health Strategy for any change in the clinical offerings at its Canaan campus, sober houses generally do not provide any clinical services and therefore can be opened and closed at will. This has led to concerns that there are too many sober houses and some may be unsafe—in 2017, two people died in sober houses in Torrington.  An industry group, the Connecticut Alliance of Recovery Residences (CTARR), was formed to provide some self-regulation. Dan Smith, Mountainside’s vice president of strategic operations, is the president of CTARR.

Clashes over the placement of sober houses in residential areas are frequent, but towns quickly learn (as did Norfolk) that sober houses are essentially immune to local zoning. Federal laws, including the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (persons diagnosed with substance abuse disorders are recognized as disabled), effectively override any zoning aimed at restricting the right of those individuals to live in a community. However, sober houses are still subject to local fire safety regulations. Norfolk Fire Marshall Keith Byrne said he has made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to confirm the number of people living in the sober house on Ashpohtag and has asked the state fire marshal’s office for assistance. 

Neighbors Make Peace

Neighbors on Ashpohtag seem to have made peace with Mountainside’s presence. “I am glad people are getting help,” said Chris Peterson, who lives on the road. But, citing the use of the MY CT OASIS LLC, Peterson added he “didn’t like the way they went about it. There’s nothing forthright in how they set this up.” 

In an email response to an inquiry from Norfolk Now, Dan Smith of Mountainside wrote “We understand there may have been confusion surrounding the use of MY CT OASIS LLC for leasing the property. Such measures are commonly employed to uphold the privacy and confidentiality of our clients. However, we recognize that this may have caused some misunderstanding within the community.”

Some neighbors on Ashpohtag have also complained about aggressive driving by a van operator associated with the facility (sober house residents typically do not use cars while living there and are driven to jobs or shopping). 

Asked to look back on  the fate of his dream house, Karbelnikoff sounded wistful. “It’s ironic what’s happened, but I have no ill will,” he said. “If it’s helping people that’s great. It’s a beautiful place. We put a lot of love into that house.” 

Karbelnikoff still owns an adjacent piece of property. Asked if there were any plans for it, he declined comment but soon after he filed an application at Norfolk town hall to build tennis courts there. Apparently, the dream of creating something unique on Ashpohtag Road has never completely died.