Asking Price for Leona's Mansion? $125 Million. Its History? Priceless!

As noted in The Wall Street Journal, Leona's Helmsley's Greenwich mansion is up for sale.

"Known as Dunnellen Hall, the estate of more than 40 acres was at the center of Mrs. Helmsley's 1989 federal tax-evasion trial, when she was accused of illegally billing her company for more than $3 million of property renovations."

For a country estate less than a century old, Dunellen packs a lot of history.

The history starts with Daniel Grey Reid, the King of Tin Plate.

Before World War I, in the days when "rich" meant RICH, Reid's only child, his daughter Rhea, married Henry Topping, son of the head of Republic Iron and Steel. As recounted in this Greenwich Time article, Reid decided the young Toppings should live well:

Set on one of the highest hills in the backcountry, with distant views of Long Island Sound . . . Dunnellen Hall was named by Rhea for her mother, Ella Dunn, according to "The Great Estates" by the Junior League of Greenwich. Built of steel and reinforced concrete, it originally was surrounded by 40 acres. The Toppings acquired additional land for a total of 208 acres, but today the surrounding grounds again total 40 acres.

Among its outstanding features are eight double-stacked chimneys, in varying terra cotta designs.

It has a marble-floored 47-foot-long reception hall; a marble stairway with wrought-iron railings swoops up to a double landing on the second floor and an 86-foot gallery crosses the entrance hall.

The living room measures 45 by 25 feet, with molded plaster ceiling and teak floor, and includes a floor-to-ceiling fireplace of limestone. The library is swathed in oak paneling and has floor-to-ceiling shelves and a 15th-century carved stone mantel.

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When the Toppings were in residence, the estate, like many of its contemporaries, was a private world with a working farm -- corn and potato fields, vegetable gardens, a herd of registered Guernsey cows, chickens and pigs.

The year the building of Dunnellen began, Reid also gave his daughter his six-story home on Fifth Avenue. In the wintertime, when the Toppings lived there, and later in an apartment, vegetables, milk, cream and butter from the farm were sent on the baggage car of the 8:15 a.m. train to the city, where they were collected by one of the family chauffeurs for home consumption.

There were 23 servants living in the Greenwich mansion, and several working families lived on the estate. A coachman, dairyman, gardener, two chauffeurs, a farm worker and an engineer lived on site.

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The three sons of the Toppings were famed in town for their parties at Dunnellen Hall and their indoor motorcycle staircase rides. Two of them also were known for their multiple marriages.

Dan, a co-owner of the New York Yankees, had five wives, among them Sonja Henie, the Norwegian ice-skating and film star, who won three Olympic gold medals, and Arline Judge, the dancer and actress, who was later married to Dan's brother, Henry J. Jr., known as Bob. Bob also was married to Lana Turner, the movie star.

After World War II and the death of Rhea and Henry, Sr., Dunnellen passed through various hands. Those I remember belonged to Jack Dick, who for a time made Greenwich the Black Angus capital of New England. (It was a tax shelter venture that didn't end well.). In 1983 the Helmsleys' bought Dunnellen and its furnishings for $11 million. They then proceeded to fix the place up.

The rest is tax history.


Proceeds from the sale of Dunnellen won't go to Trouble, Leona's Maltese. (The dog is already well provided for.) Under the terms of her will, the money will be added to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.