And back for more abuse

25 Close Road, which at one point sold for $19.5 million, is back on the market asking $12. Built in 2000 by a Russian oligarch, it’s exactly what you’d expect from that combination of money and steppe taste. Back then I was having trouble with the publisher-supplied artist who was illustrating my forthcoming book, “The New Millionaire’s Handbook”, a guide to being rude, rich, and arrogant and inculcating a sense of entitlement in one’s children. The artist wasn’t capturing the full spirit of the excrescent buildings going up around the country, especially in Greenwich, so I put daughter Kate and her camera in my car and drove up here to take pictures for him.

A year later, the house was on the market and I showed up on the broker tour. “Oh”, I told listing agent Julie Church, “I have pictures of this house in my new book! Let me go get a copy”. I returned with the book and showed it to Julie. She flipped through a couple of pages and said, horrified, “Oh my God, get this out of here!”.

I think my somewhat strained relationship with Julie started then.

Where I lost my innocence and learned that there’s such a thig as a natatorium