Area Man Threatens To Out-Toilet Stevie Cohen
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 they 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."), those intimately familiar with the gastrointestinal habits of SAC Capital Founder Steve Cohen know better.
Though never stated outright, the real problem with Kogan's house is that it is slated to contain 26 toilets. And though it has many, many WC's, Steve Cohen's home does not have 26. Were Kogan to start building without making some edits first, he would not only be embarrassing Cohen in his own domain, he would be breaking a law, which the residents quoted by Bloomberg are trying to uphold. Section 182, clause 17 of the Greenwich town code clearly states that "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 rink's to Steve's 1," a friend of a friend of a friend told DealBreaker. "It's the toilets he cares about. Just the toilets."
Empathizing with the big guy, CNBC on-air editor Charlie Gasparino commented that he "fully understands where Cohen's coming from." Pausing momentarily to enjoy a paper-thin slice of salami he'd cut moments earlier on the deli meat slicer he'd won in a bet with his local butcher, Gasparino added, "Bathrooms are extremely important to me. I live in a studio, but it's got 4 cans. And I think that because so much of my identity is tied to my obsession with being 'regular,' I'd probably feel threatened if the guy next door had 5. I know it sounds crazy, but it'd be like I was less of a man or something."
Greenwich Resists Plan for 26-Toilet Home in Hedge-Fund Capital [Bloomberg]
