NY Times.com- THE 40-acre estate of the fabled hotel queen Leona Helmsley, in Greenwich, Conn., has a colorful history and was hard to sell, lingering on the market for 829 days, with giant price reductions along the way. But it finally sold last week, for $35 million, $20 million less than the last asking price, according to property records.
The estate, known as Dunnellen Hall, was originally listed at $125 million in 2008, but even for an opulent mansion in Greenwich, and even before the housing crash, that price tag was considered high.
The broker who handled the deal on behalf of the Helmsleys’ charitable trust, Jane Howard Basham of David Ogilvy & Associates Realtors in Greenwich, declined to discuss the deal and, citing confidentiality agreements, also declined to identify the buyers.
The 28-room Jacobean-style mansion, built in 1918, has a 70-foot marble reflecting pool with a three-tier fountain, a 52-foot indoor swimming pool, a 75-foot outdoor pool and a 45-foot living room. It has more than 20,000 square feet of living space.
But it was the $1 million marble dance floor that got the late Mrs. Helmsley and her husband, Harry, into trouble in the late 1980s. They were indicted for fraudulently writing off as business expenses the dance floor and other items for the manor, totaling more than $4 million. Mrs. Helmsley, who was 87 when she died in 2007 — in the Greenwich mansion — served 18 months in prison, while her husband was declared unfit to stand trial.
She died AT the house?? H*LL YEAH it's haunted. lol
My favorite Leona quote:
"We don't pay taxes," the housekeeper testified her boss had said. "Only the little people pay taxes."
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