Takeover in Dallas
Oil investor and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens and his wife, California horse breeder Madeleine Paulson, have added to their real-estate holdings with a Mediterranean-style house in Dallas. The property, bought last month for $5 million, sits on about an acre of land with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a three-car garage and a pool.
Janie McGarr, the daughter of former Dallas Mayor Annette Strauss, and her husband Cappy sold Mr. Pickens the house, public records show. Its gated community is in the Preston Hollow area of Dallas, with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban a neighbor. Dave Perry-Miller, of Prudential Texas Properties in Dallas, represented the buyer and sellers in the transaction. Mr. Pickens, the 77-year-old chairman of BP Capital Management, made his fortune investing in oil and gas stocks and structuring corporate takeovers during the 1980s. He not only gave the Red Cross $6 million for Hurricane Katrina relief, but leased three airplanes to have pets stranded by the storm airlifted to safety. The billionaire, who also owns a large ranch in Pampa, Texas, declined comment.
Log On, Sell House
Internet pioneer Dan Whaley auctioned off his San Mateo, Calif., home on eBay last week for $1.2 million. The waterfront property received 152 bids in 10 days, according to Mr. Whaley, who started with an initial asking price of 99 cents. He paid $497,000 for the three-bedroom house in 1997, he adds, and chose the auction site to save on sales commissions and to get the best possible price for the house, which he says local brokers initially priced less than $1 million. EBay spokesman Hani Durzy estimates that of the 55,000 current eBay listings, 5,000 are real-estate or property related, and 1,600 of those are residential real estate.
Mr. Whaley, 36, founded the Internet Travel Network, among the first travel-service Web sites, at the beginning of the dot-com boom in 1995. The company eventually became GetThere.com and was sold in 2000 to Sabre Holdings, owner of Travelocity, for $757 million. The 1,650-square-foot Moroccan-style home sits on a San Mateo lagoon and includes a koi pond, tiled pool and a dock with hydraulic boat lift. Mr. Whaley says he plans to relocate to San Francisco. Jon Moeller, a vice president with CB Richard Ellis real estate in San Mateo, was the buyer.
Price Jump in Hamptons
Venture capitalist Chris Burch and fellow Wall Street executive Todd Morley have listed an oceanfront property in Southampton, N.Y., for $25 million -- $11 million more than they paid just four months ago.
Mr. Burch, husband of fashion designer Tory Burch, and Mr. Morley bought the house in June from Broadway producer and theater owner James Nederlander Sr. and his wife, Charlene, public records show. The two-story Contemporary sits on Meadow Lane, a posh Hamptons area whose neighbors include Calvin Klein. Architect Norman Jaffe, who planned more than 50 Modernist homes in the Hamptons area before his death in 1993, designed the house, which has six bedrooms, six bathrooms and about 200 feet of ocean frontage. The Nederlanders owned the house for 10 years, according to Mrs. Nederlander. She and her husband recently bought another property in the area. Harald Grant, of Sotheby's International Realty, had the listing. Mr. Burch, 52, says renovations included a redesign of the landscaping to allow more ocean views. Mr. Morley, managing partner of financial-services company Guggenheim Partners, didn't return a phone call seeking comment.
After Fraud Case, a Listing
Former apparel-industry executive Richard Rubin, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1999, has put his Greenwich, Conn., house on the market for $9.5 million. He and his wife, Hazel, bought the two-story Tudor in 1997 from fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger for $5.5 million, according to Mrs. Rubin. Mr. Rubin, 62, resigned in 1996 from his post of chief executive at now-defunct clothing manufacturer Donnkenny Inc. His guilty plea, in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., related to his part in a scheme to inflate financial results at the New York clothing manufacturer. The home, on 5.3 acres, measures 7,000 square feet and includes five bedrooms, six full bathrooms and a heated swimming pool. The Rubins also own homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla. Joann Erb of Round Hill Partners in Greenwich has the listing.
First Published: October 14, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
