The Secretive Queen of High-End Real Estate Makes a Powerful New Alliance

In spite of her innumerable accomplishments, there’s little known about local real estate mogul Heather Croner—and that’s precisely the way she likes it. For more than 40 years Croner has had a hand in shaping the landscape of the Hudson Valley from behind the scenes. She’s  brokered many of the region’s most significant real estate deals from the elegantly remodeled barn on her Millbrook property.

Last month, Heather Croner Real Estate Sotheby’s International Realty merged with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty, the largest Sotheby’s affiliate in the Northeast. The merger, described by Croner as a tactical expansion, grants her agents enhanced operational support while preserving her name, team, and sensibility.

Croner became the first Sotheby’s agent in the Hudson Valley in 1980, shortly after the auction house launched their expansion into real estate. She’s sat atop the market in Dutchess, Columbia, and Ulster County ever since. With such a successful career one might think the recent business move was a step toward abdicating her throne. She insists that’s not the case.

“I’m not giving up,” says Croner, whose exact age and other seemingly innocuous personal details, like her maiden name, remain a secret even after extensively scouring public records, searching a genealogical database, and multiple interviews. “I’m expanding.”​

The Hitchcock Estate main house, exclusivly represented by Heather Croner

To those who do know her, the news comes as a welcome but rare public announcement from a woman of legendary discretion. “Heather has really done that all these years,” William Pitt broker Tony Cutugno says. “When you're dealing with high-powered people, they like to protect their privacy, and she makes that possible.” 

Cutugno, who was first impressed by Croner in the 1980s, when she helped him sell a home to actress Mary Tyler Moore (obviously this information was provided by Cutugno not Croner), called the new alliance, “an extraordinary opportunity,” adding, “I’ve been wanting her to join me somehow for years. Now it’s finally happened.”

Croner’s firm sold three of the five most expensive homes in the Hudson Valley in 2024 and exclusively represents the most expensive property currently for sale in the region—the fabled Hitchcock Estate in Millbrook, priced at $65 million. While she’s happy to warmly chat about her listings and their histories, ask her about her clients and she’ll smile politely before pivoting the conversation. “I care about keeping people’s personal stories private,” she says. “It’s their business, not mine.”

What makes Cronor’s graceful evasiveness so alluring is that she doesn’t dodge questions—she dissolves them. She speaks with the measured charm of someone who understands the immense power of silence, and she’s sweet about it. “I think we just don’t talk about ourselves too much,” she says, amused but firm.

Based on scraps of information gathered from 35-year-old magazine interviews, where she was already displaying her skills, and crumbs of biography fed to this hungry writer, seemingly out of pity, there are a few things known about Croner. A former fashion model from northwestern England, Croner landed in New York in the 1960s, on her way home from Jamaica visiting a cousin. In Manhattan she met and later married famed street photographer Ted Croner, with whom she had a daughter, and together they settled in Millbrook, on the property where she still lives and works. She says she was drawn here by the resemblance to the English countryside. Her downtime is spent landscaping the immaculate grounds that usher clients into her inner sanctum. 

Working in real estate began almost as a side hustle for Croner. “I was interested from the point of view of landscapes and stories,” she says. “And before I knew it, I had Sotheby’s calling me to see if I would represent them.”

Another massive property represented by Croner in Pine Planes.

Her sensibility has made her an intuitive guide to the tastes of her powerful, private buyers. “I think I can sense it,” she says when asked how she reads clients' needs. “They don’t even have to speak… and somehow, we bring the conversation around to them telling me the same thing I already decided I knew.”

This subtle, client-first approach, and her stranglehold on the top of the market, is exactly what William Pitt Sotheby’s sees as invaluable. “Heather has represented the most important properties in her market,” Cutugno says. “Once you get one, you get three. And three becomes six. And over time, it just keeps escalating.”

The new alliance connects Croner’s Hudson Valley base with William Pitt’s extensive network of 27 offices and more than 1,100 agents spanning Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. “She helped make my decision to come back to Sotheby’s, quite frankly,” shares Cutugno, who started his career with the company and then spent a number of years with other agencies. “She’s still number one, even as firms like Compass and Corcoran entered her market.”

But don’t mistake Croner’s scaling up for dilution. Her team remains 12 agents strong, chosen for their shared values, elegance, and expertise. “They offer a lot more resources and tools for my agents,” she says of William Pitt Sotheby’s. 

Her agents are fiercely loyal—some have worked with her for decades. For many years Croner’s agency was all female, staffed with local women she saw potential in and then cultivated into industry leaders.

Through Pitt’s infrastructure, her team will now gain access to expanded marketing platforms, have a global reach, and grow their operational depth. Still, Croner remains the heart of the business. “There’s no heir to the throne,” Cutugno says. “So this partnership is our way of supporting her legacy and setting the stage for what’s next.”