Home of Famed Rye Aviator on the Block for $4.8 Million

The Rye home of famed aviator Ruth Rowland Nichols is on the block and can be yours for only $4.825 million dollars.

(PHOTO: Rye aviator Ruth Rowland Nichols.)

Gail Feeney of Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty and the better half of "The OG" (known here at MyRye.com for his Garnet football commentary) is carrying the listing for the six bedroom four and one half bath home that sits on 3.3 acres at 289 Grace Church Street.

The better know aviator Amelia Earhart is more frequently mentioned in connection to Rye, although said connection was primarily through her vegetable garden. According the Wikipedia, Nichols "was the only woman yet to hold simultaneous world records for speed, altitude, and distance for a female pilot." and "In 1929, she was a founding member, with Amelia Earhart and others, of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of licensed women pilots."

LoHud.com has more background on Rowland Nichols:

"Ruth Rowland Nichols was a famous aviator with a colorful history.

Often known as "The Flying Debutante," Nichols, who was born in 1901, had Westchester connections: She grew up in a stately home in Rye, complete with servants, then graduated from The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry and Wellesley College before embarking on an amazing career as an aviator.

Although not a household name, Nichols was a pioneer when it came to flight. She was an early world record setter for female pilots in speed, altitude and distance.

Nichols is the subject of a new book, "Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History,” by Keith O'Brien.

In a review, USA Today described Nichols as "a well-to-do young woman raised in a Westchester County, New York, mansion chafing at the constraints and expectations of her privileged existence."

Nichols' career was impressive: According to the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Nichols became the first licensed woman seaplane pilot in the U.S. in 1924.

In 1929, she became the first women to land in all 48 contiguous states.

Nichols and her flight instructor became the first to fly non-stop from New York to Miami in 1928.

She, not Amelia Earhart, might have become the woman to fly alone across the Atlantic, had not a crash derailed her quest.

In 1931, the New York Times noted "that Ruth Nichols, whose proposed transatlantic flight ended in a crash at St. John, N.B., returned last night to her home in Rye, N.Y. She made the trip in a cabin monoplane ploted (sic) by Clarence Chamberlin and arrived at the Westchester Airport."

Her home at 289 Grace Church St. is as impressive today as it must have been when Nichols was in residence."

See the rest.