COMMENT OF THE DAY: INSIDE THE STANFORD FINANCIAL GROUP OFFICES AT 5050 WESTHEIMER “I have been through this building and it is decorated entirely in a (expensive) mahogany-green marble color scheme, put in place about 10 years ago. There is a large Palladian skylight with an ornate stair connecting the upper levels. Sir Allen’s office was huge with floor to ceiling wood paneling with some impressive wood coffers on the ceiling. Allen wanted all the offices around the world to look the same, so they all used this exact same color scheme. The furniture was of the not-so-inspiring big heavy mahagony type and the art on the walls were bad Audubon print reproductions. What was so wierd about the office was how empty it was. This was 2002 and there was almost noone in the building, despite the extreme amount of money that he spent renovating it. There were rows and rows of empty offices and the parking garage had the same empty feeling. There was a private dining room and a commercial kitchen in the building also, with a full time chef (food was great!). The whole building seemed as if it was supposed to present an image of old money grace and prestige, but somehow, it just wasn’t quite right.” [mt, commenting on Westheimer Office Building and All: Allen Stanford Says Sell!]
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I can 2nd that. My compnay provided services to their IT dept and we had the ‘pleasure’ of visiting their locations (offshore tax haven locations as well as HQ Galleria). Place was decorated up, just like every other bank (and banker in fancy suit). Banks and Bankers are putting on a show, so why would you expect otherwise!
IT dept of Stanford (and company as a whole) was a$$holes to even the nicest of people and was an account that many companies simply said no to serving them (we did not want their business any more).
Anyone see the size of the Federal Reserve Bank on Allen Parkway! Talk about a show!!! Now thats a show! When is the Regulator going to show up and shut down that racket!
3rd that. I placed some consultants at Stanford and went up there to drop something off for one day. Came away and told my boss “glad I’m not an investor paying for all that nonsense.” All it lacked was a harpist in a corner plucking away to complete the image of an upscale manly steak joint.
Full disclosure: the consultants were unceremoniously dumped when Stanford went down costing both my company and me personally thousands.
Ouch. Fortunately we were paid in full. Everything about working as a consultant for them was strange, though. I found Allen to be a very secretive individual who wanted to personally approve all of our projects despite his busy schedule. We never knew where he was as he had his jets constantly in the air. We would receive a call to show up for a meeting offshore (on 48 hours notice) expecting him to be there and instead would get his booming voice coming out of a speakerphone. I always suspected that he was actually in the next room.