Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
20 Holly Way, a building lot comprising 1.6 acres, is back on the market at the same price, $1.6 million, that has proven so unsuccessful over the past years. It started at $1.8 million that year, but quickly dropped to $1.6, where it has been lodged ever since. Purchased for $1.450 in 2006 ($2,338,419 in current dollars), its main problem may be that its close proximity to Kenmondo Road, a name that annoys me every time I pass it.
118 John Street, built in 1996 by (well, for) the founder of the Seven Bridges Foundation, the late (February 28, 2025) Richard McKenzie has been listed for sale at $8.250 million. 8,635 sq.ft., with an additional 3,767 sq. ft. in the unfinished basement, if you feel squeezed for space, on 10 acres, it adjoins the foundation’s 50 acres, so you’ll have plenty of undisturbed privacy. (An interesting snippet of the foundation’s history can be found here).
(I hope there are wall cabinets not captured in this picture)
UPDATE
EOS whines that the Hartford Current article is behind a paywall. Not for me, using Chrome, but I’m kind of special. For those who aren’t, here’s the text:
On Jan. 27, 2010, firefighters responded to a blaze in a residential area in Greenwich. In the local paper the next day, it was reported that a mansion was damaged by fire. That was not quite right.
The destroyed building may have been in a residential neighborhood, but it was not a home. It was a museum. It had been under construction since August 2008 and was just one week shy of getting its certificate of occupancy. No artworks were destroyed, because they hadn’t been moved in yet, but construction on the building had to begin all over again.
After two and a half years of delays caused by the fire, the Seven Bridges Foundation opens its Gallery II to the public this week, adding an extravagant, quirky and somewhat mysterious element to the Connecticut museum scene. Admission is free to the nonprofit museum. However, appointments are required and it’s open on Tuesdays only, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visitors are limited to six to 10 a day, but that might change in the spring.
Seven Bridges is at 114 John St., in a quiet “backcountry” neighborhood of gated mansions hidden from curious passers-by by long, curving driveways. Seven Bridges itself is gated and secluded. Visitors must be identified and buzzed in at a security squawk box, and risk getting lost on the meandering driveway once the gate swings open.
Once inside, even before Gallery II is in sight, beauty beckons. An eclectic sculpture garden dots the impossibly lovely 80 acres of landscaped grounds. Playful rabbits by Barry Flanagan and Sophie Ryder, Henry Schiowitz’s clasping hands, Hanneke Beaumont’s meditative figures, chubby acrobats by Michael Bergt, wandering animals by Peter Woytuk, and abstract pieces by Raphael Moulin, Charles Perry, James Knowles, Don Gummer and Paul Suttman are among the dozens of works placed carefully, for maximum individual appreciation.
Richard C. McKenzie, an artist and co-founder of McKenzie Walker Investment Management, is the sole founder of and investor in the Seven Bridges Foundation. Many of the sculptures outside are his. Museum officials guard access to McKenzie and hesitated to discuss him at all.
The gallery building, designed by Laura Kaehler of Greenwich, is a work of art in itself. Kaehler’s website writes “We designed the home to resemble three stone barns that could have been built on the property years ago and then ‘renovated’ for their current use. We then joined these stone barns with transparent glass connectors with flat contemporary roofs. … We opened up these stone volumes with one and two-story glass cantilevered boxes.” Key design features include fieldstone walls, cedar roofing, “living green” roof gardens, wood flooring and walls with fir timbers.
There’s that reference to a “home” again. Museum spokeswomen said that while Seven Bridges Gallery II is not a residence, it had to be built with residential features to conform with zoning. So visitors will be confused, or charmed, to see that some restrooms have bathtubs in them. There also is a dining room with paintings and sculptures in it, and a bedroom and kitchen that are not accessible to the public.
Once inside, the spacious and light-filled, 17,000-square-foot interior is a mixture of portraits, still lifes, landscapes and narrative works, with a strong emphasis on modernism and realism, a sprinkling of surrealism and a stunning collection of glass art.
Portraitists include Odd Nerdrum and Steven Assael, two favorites of McKenzie. Nerdrum favors portraits with a mythological aura to them, while Assael’s are ultra-modern, even freakish, as in “Johanna,” a painting of a punky woman with a shock of red hair. William Beckman’s models pose stiffly and stare straight, and straight-faced, at the artist, while Richard Maury and Paul Fenniak prefer depictions of people at work.
Still lifes include the industrial images of Joseph McNamara, commercial signage by Robert Cottingham, gadgets by William Fisk and the offbeat classicism of Will Wilson. Glasswork is dominated by Italian-American artist Lino Tagliapetra and Venetian Archimede Seguso, as well as European artists such as Vladimir Bachorik, Jaroslava Brychtova, Stanislav Libensky and Dante Marioni.
McNamara and Beckman make a strong showing in landscapes, too, as well as rural and urban scenes by Chester Arnold, Max Ferguson, Cesar Galicia and Linden Frederick.
The narrative works are the most unusual of the lot, with freaky scenes by Nerdrum and Assael, as well as Fenniak’s “Cemetery Vandals,” Daniel Greene’s “Dartboards & Balloons,” Brad Noble’s “The Bath of Crimson” and “Self-Portrait with Green and Red Painting – Wrath” by Kent Bellows, which may shock those with delicate sensibilities.
Museum spokeswomen did not reveal how much McKenzie spent to create this shrine to modern art. However, a lawsuit filed earlier this month by McKenzie against an art dealer for alleged overcharging stated that Seven Bridges “had in excess of $100,000,000.00 in liquid assets dedicated to purchasing art and supporting artists.”
In addition to the number and quality of the artworks, visitors will scope out the neighborhood, the acreage, the flawless upkeep, the elegant architecture and the tight security and their imaginations will run wild with guesstimates.
To make an appointment to visit, email info@sevenbridges.org and fill out the form. The gallery’s phone number is 203-861-7527.
the pen giveth, and the pen taketh away — although not according to grandstanding federal judges
A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from revoking the legal status and work permits of the more than 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who flew into the United States during former President Joe Biden’s time in office.
The migrants came to the US under Biden’s controversial controversial CHNV mass humanitarian parole program.
In her order, Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, wrote that each migrant needs to have an individualized, case-by-case review.
“The Termination of Parole Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, 90 Fed. Reg. 13611 (Mar. 25, 2025), is hereby STAYED pending further court order insofar as it revokes, without case-by-case review, the previously granted parole and work authorization issued to noncitizens paroled into the United States pursuant to parole programs for noncitizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (the ‘CHNV parole programs’) prior to the noncitizen’s originally stated parole end date,” she wrote.
Biden created the CHNV program in 2023 via his executive parole authority. The program was launched in 2022 and initially first applied to Venezuelans before it was expanded to additional countries.
The Biden administration argued that CHNV would help reduce illegal crossings at the southern border and allow better vetting of people entering the country amid an influx of migrants.
The program was temporarily paused after widespread fraud was found. Several recipients were also arrested for high-profile crimes, including multiple child rapes.
CHNV allowed the migrants and their immediate family members to fly into the US if they had American sponsors. They could remain in the country for two years under a temporary immigration status known as parole.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the Trump administration said Talwani essentially ruled that Trump can’t use his own executive authority, the same authority Biden used, to revoke the parole that Biden granted.
“It is pure lawless tyranny,” a Trump administration official told Fox News.
During his first administration, Trump signed an executive order authorizing the Keystone Pipeline to be built; on his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order reversing Trump’s and permanently halting construction, thereby throwing thousands of workers off their jobs and devastating the small businesses in small S. Dakota towns that were dependent on those workers, and causing millions of dollars of materials and equipment to be wasted. No federal judge intervened.
But wait, there’s more!’
Terrified Luigi Mangione Files Restraining Order Against Taylor Lorenz
BROOKLYN, NY — After a recent interview aired on CNN in which Taylor Lorenz fawned over the accused murderer like a giddy schoolgirl, Luigi Mangione immediately filed for a restraining order to keep Taylor Lorenz at least 100 yards away from him at all times.
Mangione is still being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center for the alleged cold-blooded assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO who was also a married man with children. The killer overheard the smitten Taylor Lorenz dremily calling him a "smart, handsome, morally good revolutionary" which prompted Mangione to take immediate protective action.
"Woah, this chick is crazy," said Luigi from his jail cell. "I just killed a guy and she thinks that's attractive? Just look at her eyes. You can always tell by the eyes."
The judge immediately granted Mangione the restraining order when he saw that the filing was for "that crazy chick Taylor Lorenz."
"Taylor Lorenz? The one with the eyes? Say no more," said Judge Keifer Star from the bench. "I hereby order no contact between Taylor Lorenz and Luigi Mangione by phone, text, email, social media, or third parties and a stay-away distance of 1000 yards at all times for a period no fewer than 5 years."
"When the five years are up, just come back and I'll make an extension no questions asked," said Judge Star sympathetically.
At publishing time, Luigi Mangione was seen trashing several letters that were completely covered with playful decorative red hearts with the initials ‘T+L' scribbled in them.
107 Clapboard Ridge Road, $13.250 million. Purchased new in 2007 for $10.6, so I guess $13’s in the realm of reason.
Pushing it: Baret Evans (l) is the compassionate “Chief Learning Officer” at Ford Motors
Stephen Green has more:
…. So what the hell does a Chief Learning Officer do? I've watched corporate America for 30-plus years — from comfortably afar — but somehow the position of CLO had never crossed my desk. So I asked ChatGPT, which told me that the CLO is a "senior executive responsible for an organization’s learning, development, and knowledge strategy. Think of them as the C-suite champion of professional growth — making sure the workforce keeps adapting, innovating, and improving."
That sounded like meaningless corporate-ese, so I asked Grok for a harder hit. It told me to "Think of them as the person who forces you to sit through those mind-numbing e-learning modules but with a fancier title and a corner office. Their job is to keep the company’s brainpower from flatlining while pretending it’s all part of some grand strategic vision."
This is why Grok is my usual go-to over ChatGPT.
If, like me, you thought the idea of a Human Resources busybody having a C-level position was already too much of a drag on a company's core functions, I'm reasonably certain after today's brief research that, whatever it is the CLO does, it's probably worse.
In the case of Ford's CLO, Barrett Evans, his function seems to be harassing an elderly guy in a wheelchair for watching Fox News and then bragging about it on social media.
…. For what it's worth, wheelchair accommodations are legally mandated by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Even before then, airlines generally seemed happy to accommodate almost any paying passenger. The point here is that Ford's CLO doesn't seem to understand that the D in DEI doesn't stand for Disability. You'd think a guy with a seat in the C-suite would at least know the fundamentals.
The story also has one of those telling details that I almost missed the first time around. Evans's social media account — posed in front of a Pride decoration — uses the handle "chivalryandchampagne." My advice? Skip the bubbly, Barrett, and rediscover the chivalry.
But the broader point is a question: why the hell does a huge carmaker like Ford have a C-level professional nanny? The answer is that lefties, progressives, and other destructive forces in the universe magnify their power by assuming or creating positions of influence or authority. Think of the CLO as the USAID mole in the organization.
I'd also wager that no matter what the old man in the wheelchair might have thought about Barrett Evans, Ford's rank and file think even worse of him.
Mr. Baret appears to taken down his LinkedIn page — understandably — but here’s a photo from it that can still be found on Google Images:
Mr. Steven L. Weinberger, Moron
Avon police said Monday that they arrested a man after he allegedly drew a swastika on a Tesla.
Steven Lowell Weinberger, 40, of Avon, is facing charges of criminal mischief in the second degree and breach of peace in the second degree. He was released on a $25,000 surety bond with a court date of April 30 at Hartford Community Court.
Weinberger allegedly admitted to police that he drew the swastika as he was "upset with the current political climate in the country" and that he did not know the owner of the Tesla, police said.
Wow, brother, right on — that’s showing it to the Man, just like you did back in your gender studies classes. Pure genius.
…. In Mississippi, state auditor Shad White, also known as “Mississippi Musk,” has been hard at work against state government bloat, and what he has found is enlightening.
Ol’ Shad, as I imagine the folks down there in Clarksdale an’ Natchez call him, has found that Mississippi has wasted a staggering amount of money, and he would be the first one to tell you that it is extremely unlikely that Elvis’ home state is alone in this. Fox News reported Monday that White is releasing “a compilation of audits conducted by his office that tabulated a collective $400 million in waste over the course of his tenure.”
…. White remarked: "In the last few weeks, we’ve jokingly started calling ourselves MOGE, the Mississippi Office of Government Efficiency, like Elon Musk’s DOGE. We approach our work with the same attention to every penny as DOGE, and I’m happy to be Mississippi’s Musk." Indeed. Every state should have a Musk, and a DOGE. Just imagine what COGE, the California Office of Government Efficiency, or NYOGE, the New York Office of Government Efficiency, would uncover.
After all, Mississippi is a relatively small and poor state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since it went for Jimmy Carter in 1976 (clearly Mississippians learned their lesson from that). It is unlikely to have the kind of massively corrupt state government that comes from electing socialists who think they’re entitled to as much of your money as they can seize, so as to spend it on DEI, Critical Race Theory, and transgender madness. And even so, Mississippi Musk and his team found a great deal of money that could have and should have been better spent.
White is so concerned about state government waste that his MOGE efforts didn’t even begin in imitation of what Elon Musk is doing in Washington. He explained: "We've been working on this project really for the last couple of years. And what's encouraging right now is that President Trump and Elon Musk are doing DOGE, which has raised public awareness about the amount of fraud, waste and abuse in government. So people are starting to look closely at what we've uncovered. In our time in the state auditor's office, my team and I have uncovered about $400 million worth of waste."
He will detail all this waste in an 800-page report that will show, among other things, that “Medicaid is a major issue, in that tens of millions of dollars in subsidies are going to income-ineligible Mississippians.” Even worse, “one state agency was spending nearly $6,000 each on televisions, which the similarly bloated feds pay about $2,000 for similar tech.” White commented: "So, if you think the federal government is inefficient, I promise you, your state governments around the country are likely even less efficient."
White added that Mississippi was not exempt from the left’s craziness, for "when you dig into what they're doing with all of this staff time and all of these resources, they were doing things like holding microaggression training sessions for engineers — I don't know why we need to do that. They were handing out grants for social justice yoga for preschoolers. Just crazy stuff." Even in Mississippi, the leftist forces of indoctrination have been hard at work, with “$11 million in taxpayer funding has gone to DEI at colleges alone.”
And while one in five Mississippians lives below the poverty line, White says that “we found dollars supposed to be going to poor folks going to pay for sponsorship of beauty pageants. Really, I think the big-picture point here is, this kind of waste happens at every level of government. And now that DOGE is taking the lead and showing the country how much fraud, waste and abuse there is, it's really incumbent on every single state government to take a look at their own house and make sure that that fraud, waste, and abuse isn't happening in state government, too."
6 Carissa Lane, $2.850 million, is reported pending after 9 days and almost surely going for more than ask. Nice house, decent street, so no surprise here, but look what happened to this same home’s value between 2003 and 20020: It declined. In fact, using current 2020 dollars, those 2003 buyers paid the equivalent of $2,348,448 in 2003 and got $1.635 back when they sold it.
Obviously, there are all sorts of factors to consider when calculating whether someone made or lost money on a house, including its value as shelter, debt leverage, taxes, etc., but it’s still interesting to see how stagnant sales prices were for many homes over the past two decades.
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