Le Petit Trianon is on the market, at $32 million

The late Rene Anselmo’s house at 408 North Street, with 18 acres (12 and 6, for the bulldozer crowd). The second attempt, as a reader reminds me.There are so many wonderful stories about Rene’s exploits because he was such a colorful man and a great benefactor of the town. Here’s a brief summary of a few of them:

Rene was determined to beautify the town in matters large and small. He led the campaign to remove billboards from many sites in town; one notable victory was the removal of the one at the Cos Cob - Riverside border, on the Mianus River. He was responsible for the tulips (daffodils?) that stretched for miles up North Street, the white street signs that are seen on so many intersections (the town didn’t like those, because they didn’t want to maintain them), the wood fence around the lawn bowling green in Bruce Park, replacing the ugly wire one (same understandable reaction by the town) and so on. Once, driving to the dump, he noticed the dilapidated condition of the Hamilton Avenue Elementary School playground, decided it was a disgrace for a rich town like Greenwich to provide such a sorry place for its poorest kids to play, and so ponied up something like $750,000 to install a new one.

Rene also led the victorious battle against the “For Sale” signs that sprouted like mushrooms all over town in the late 80s, when the chain realtors moved in. There had always been an unwritten agreement among the locally owned firms that signs wouldn't be used because of their unsightliness, but that was not an esthetic appreciated by the likes of Leon Black and his fellow firm-gobblers.

So Rene would tour the town in his convertible Bentley, chauffeured by his groundskeeper, and look for an offending sign. Seeing one, he’d have the car stopped, the groundsman would pluck the sign from the ground and place it in the rear of the Bentley, and they’d continue their hunt. When Rene had collected a half-dozen or so, he’d take them home to 408 North Street and place very polite calls to the local managers of those firms: “I have several of your signs here in my garage, and you may retrieve them as you wish”.

This went on for some months; Rene kept getting arrested at the demand of the chains, and the charges kept getting tossed, the Assistant State’s Attorney explaining that he was busy with murderers and rapists and really didn’t have time to waste on a billionaire conducting a good faith beautification campaign.

My law suite partner back then, criminal defense lawyer Phil Russell, defended Rene during this period and told me that one day, a Greenwich policeman showed up at the door of Le Petit Trianon, saying, “Mr. Anselmo, I’m sorry, but there’s been a complaint sworn out against you, and I’m afraid I have to take you down to headquarters”. “Well of course you do”, Rene answered, “but my wife Mary’s just made lunch — why don’t you come in and join us, and then we’ll go”.

So that’s what they did.

(There are still no commercial real estate signs in Greenwich.)

UPDATE: Courtesy of Publius, here’s a fascinating article about the home’s construction and original owner.

A footnote: according to Wikipedia, Rene was sixteen when he enlisted in the Marines and flew 37 missions as a tail gunner on a dive bomber in the Pacific Theatre of Operations. Whatever I was doing at 16, it wasn’t that.

I don’t know if there’ll be a public open house, but you can always visit Paris and tour the original