NO, YOU CAN’T SEE KEN AND LINDA LAY’S RENAISSANCE-Y HIGHRISE CONDO The storied full-floor unit on the 33rd floor of the Huntingdon at 2121 Kirby is at long last on the market . . . for $12.8 Million: “The condo sale is being handled privately by Beau Herrold, Linda Lay’s son from her first marriage. Tours are by invitation only . . . When a Chronicle reporter expressed interest in seeing the condo, so as to best to describe the Italian renaissance decor and ‘villa-style living’ touted in a real estate flier, Herrold had only one comment. ‘I bet you would.’” [Houston Chronicle]
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So they lived in Faux Tuscan, big whoop.
$12.8?..in this economy.
I hope the condo sale is as successful as her Jus Stuff elitist boutique. Linda Lay should be ashamed of herself and of her husband. The proceeds of the sale of that ‘house of pariahs’ (hear that Beau-ster?) should be given to those Enron employees from whom Ken Lay bilked millions for the personal enrichment of his family. Destroying others for the sake of personal gain is, in my opinion, one of the most heinous crimes there is.
The whole 5th floor of the Huntingdon is for sale for only $5.5 mil.
http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cfm?mlnum=6284105&class=6&sType=0
Take that Shelby.
Didn’t they also keep her out of Ken’s funeral?
Honey, they only want you to cover their parties for charity. Anything that could be construed as news is off limits.
i love that contemporary pad in that bldg on har right now.
And just think of the bad mojo, karma or whatever you want to call it that permeates the Lay’s abode….ewwwwwwwwww. No extra charge for that, eh?
“I’ll bet you would”–I guess that’s the “F*** Off, You Miserable Peon” school of marketing
“I bet you would.†What a dick.
The 5th floor unit, offered at 5.5 Million, only has a tax value of 1.8 Million!?!?
Seems like something is amiss there…
Regardless, when the HOA dues are around $7000 a month and taxes are around $3,750 a month, I think I’ll have to give that place a pass.
The 5th floor is not built out. And that contemporary unit mentioned in the comments above is TO DIE FOR. Bear in mind that the Lay pad would come with mucho parking places!
$12.8?..in this economy.
In any economy it’s a little overpriced. Even with the four elevators for guests and the two for servants.
Can some of you READ? The two units on the 5th floor have both been finished out. They are not the entire floor. So they are not one unit. You could combine them but then you would have two units combined. Maybe use the smaller unit for sevants and guests?
As for Shelby Hodge, she didn’t write the story. Claudia Feldman did. Most suspect Linda Lay was banned from the column some time ago despite the fact that despite what is stated in the story she is still very social and still lunching with the ladies who lunch and probably was banned becasue of the nasty phone messages and emails Shelby Hodge probably got the last time she itemed Linda Lay. Not everyone on the social scene continued to embrace the Lays. Particularly those who lost parts of their fortunes to them.
As for the son, what do you expect? Like mother, like son. He of course handled all the financial affairs. But of course knew nothing. So many people in this city of course knew nothing. And all were allowed to keep the money. Perhaps to make sure they continued to know nothing.
As for Linda she should have been tossed out on the street the way Ruth Madoff was but then Ruth Madoff didn’t have the Bushes pulling strings for her.
This is the kind of thing that resulted in Marie Antoinette being sent to the guillotine. “I bet you would” is just the modern version of her “Let them eat cake.”
The Lay family should go eat dirt.
President Comacho: “Both units, 5SW w/8,824 sq.ft. + 5NE w/3,944 sq.ft., totals 12,768 sq.ft.
Magnificent unit, 5SW, sold separately w/3 balconies & 6 parking spaces”.(HAR)
So, unit 5SW ( 8,824 sqft)
asking price: $5,499,000
&
unit 5NE (3,944 sqft)
asking price: $1,950,000 = $ 7,449,00 not $12,8 Million. I think the “12,8” refers to the total sqft ( 12,768 ) …
The $100,000 spent on A/C make me curious -are the A/C ceiling registers made from pure gold??
Oooooooooooops!!! Got mixed up… :(
qs & $$ are for the 5th floor (5SW/5NE).
The $12.8 Millions is the asking price for the 33rd floor.
matt,
I’m not one to defend the Bushes for anything, but you need to get your history in order. Enron (particularly Lay and other associates) were huge contributors to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Lay routinely stayed in the Lincoln bedroom during the 90s and was lobby for support on the Kyoto Protocol.
The reason? If the US signed on to the disastrous treaty, our coal industry would have all but shut down. Enron owned the transmission lines to serve all the areas of the country that would have their electricity cut off by coal plants being shut down. Enron would have made billions. Clinton was ambivalent to signing the treaty until Lay pumped a lot of money into his campaign.
During the 2000 election, Lay sent generous donations to both candidates, but he and Enron stood to make substantially more money from Gore winning.
How appropriate that they keep it in the family. Even the Travel in the Park travel agency that we were forced to use as Enron employees belonged to Linda’s family.
Talk about a family that knows how to make [profitable] lemonade!
Reading all the evenhanded comments above, I can’t imagine why some people thought he couldn’t get a fair trial in Houston. No lynch mob mentality here at all…
And you need to get your history in order. When Ken Lay was “introduced” to everyone at the Ramada Club it was George HW Bush who did the introductions and that is where the relationship began. With George HW, not George W. Most of George W’s friends, as if he really has any, were and are in fact his father’s friends. Sort of a pattern in the Bush family. They leave money and friends in the wills so to speak. Helps keep the dynasty intact.
As for who got what and when, Ken Lay spread it around depending on what he needed and who was most likely to get it for him. Spread it around like manure. No one of course noticed the smell. But then they never do.
You are looking at what was given on the table. Who knows what passed under the table. But you can make bet it was a lot.
I know very well about Lay’s connection to HW. That’s why started by saying I won’t defend the Bushes. Both of them are of the Republican breed that the core of the party wants to oust and get rid of. They fall in the progressive big government line.
There was no love for either of them with the base of their party. At certain moments there was support, but most of the time it was just disappointment.
With that said, Lay was the axel grease that could get a lot moving with his cash (actually others people’s!). I think he was betting that if he could get his agenda through, Enron would have made so much money it could cover up of the accounting fiasco he used to get money in the first place. It was a very bad bet and he didn’t win. Unfortunately a lot of people lost.
Hindsight is 20/20, but Enron’s stock was just like many of the tech stocks. A whole lot money behind a whole lot of nothing! I could say the same thing about the Madoff scandal. People really believe he could produce the enormous returns on the investment.
Does anybody know if $12.8mil is a gutted and empty condo or it is left as is? From the description of what it looked like, I could see the horror and the amount of money it would take to fix it.
Don’t know about gutted but no doubt the furnishings will go to either an auction house or a consignment shop. Lest I get sued for making comment about their taste I will leave it at that.
As for the stock itself the assets supposedly were quite substantial although like everything else we will never really know. Most were disposed of quickly. To the lowest bidder as they say.
Everyone focuses on the Lays, the Skillings and the Fastows. There were quite a few others including the “ladies who lunch” and play Lea’s “wheel of fortune” and plunked down $25,000 and ended up with between $500,000 and $1,000,000 within six months. They didn’t know of course that anything was wrong so they got to keep the money. And then of course there’s Lou Pai. And lots and lots of others. There was never really a complete audit according to some. Just what they needed to go after Andy Fastow to build a case against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling.
You are my hero, Matt, especially for your comment 13. Well stated. Better watch out for KJB though. He might mistake you for a stray dog (or one of those annoying squirrels or Mockingbirds) and pump some buckshot into your rear end.
And longcat, eating a dirt sandwich when he did was waaaaaay too good and much too convenient for Ken Lay. Only wish he could have shared a cell with Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford. You must be a Lay relative or sympathizer.
marketingwiz:
There you go calling people names and making wild assumptions. I don’t sympathize with Lay one bit. He and the rest of his ilk are criminals. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
At the same time, I’m looking at the reality of the situation and what actually happen versus taking an emotion based stance.
To kjb434:
I think marketingwiz was directing the last comments to “longcat,” not you.
Although, “dirt sandwich” is a bit cruel to say about a farm boy from Missouri. No matter how many families his ponzi scheme destroyed.
Their attitude was everyone could eat cake. So they can eat dirt. Period.
I will remember two things in my life that horrified and sent me into hysterics at the same time. The first was Hillary Clinton and her “I’m not just some woman standing by her man” interview which summed up both of them, then and now, and the second was Linda Lay and her “It’s all gone” interview. Maybe she meant the ATM that Enron had become for them was gone.
It is probably nouveau riche style interiors: you know the overly done,strving for that Old World look that arrivistes like the Lays were so desperate to convey.Just papered over their clawing,feigning, fake, two faced selves…