Trouble in hedge fund land. Greenwich residents are terrified that would-be new neighbor, Russian millionaire Valery Kogan, will make them look bad (read: poor) by building a proposed 54,000 square foot mansion with two wings, "extensive" subterranean space, and room for up to 300 guests, which will clearly dwarf their own homes, relative shacks compared to the behemoth.
Though local residents claim their protests are merely matters of (a) taste ("It looks like they want to duplicate the Winter Palace here in Greenwich,'' said Leslie McElwreath. "It'll be an eyesore.''), (b) safety ("This is a road where our kids learn to ride bikes, rollerblade, and people take walks,'' said Morris Sachs, a trader at Brevan Howard) and (c) not being summarily drowned while taking part in a pissing contest (``This is going to be a palace on a postage stamp,'' Charles Lee said. ``It's too much."), the truth is much more sordid.
The real problem is that Kogan is directly threatening to dethrone the current record holder of Most Toilets/residence in Connecticut. According to Bloomberg, Kogan's house is slated to contain 26. And though it has many, many WC's, the home of SAC Capital founder Steve Cohen does not have 26. Were Kogan to start building without making some edits to the blue prints first, he would be making a fool of Cohen in his own domain. What's more, Kogan would be breaking local Greenwich zoning laws which state: "no home shall exceed the number of waste-removal stations as are found at Casa Cohen."
Interestingly enough, Cohen, who is not cited in the article, is said to have zero problem with any other aspect of Kogan's dream home. "He could build a domicile three times the size of Stevie's, with 40 master bedrooms to Steve's 2, 16 refrigerators to Steve's 12, and 2 ice rinks to Steve's 1," a friend of a friend of a friend told DealBreaker. "It's the toilets he cares about. Just the toilets."
Greenwich Resists Plan for 26-Toilet Home in Hedge-Fund Capital [Bloomberg]
Posted by cheesedog, May 20, 2008 3:49PM
Who among us wouldnt want 26 growlers if we had that kind of loot? This guy should buy Mike Tyson's old place in CT. It is also overweighted grunters.