Tag: Enron

Buying and Selling
02/07/14 1:30pm

How the Ken Lay Condo Sale Worked Out

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Condos, Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
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Interior, 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33, Upper Kirby, Houston

The Huntingdon, 2121 Kirby Dr., Upper Kirby, HoustonA slideshow featured on the website of the Houston Business Journal (and noted in our Headlines post this morning) features the 7 most expensive homes sold in Houston last year. Coming in at No. 3 is the full-floor Huntingdon condo unit where former Enron CEO Ken Lay used to live. 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33 and its mopey-castle-in-the-sky interior (shown below after the furniture was removed) was listed for sale by his widow, Linda Lay, back in 2010 and featured on Swamplot occasionally over the following years as it hopped on and off the market a few times and descended in fits and starts from an initial (off-market) asking price of $12.8 million to the mid-single-digit millions. MLS and county tax records show the 9-bathroom, 6-elevator, 12,827-sq.-ft. pièd-a-terre with the $10K+ monthly maintenance fee finally sold last February to an entity controlled by another local CEO, for a (still-record-making, but more than half-off) $5.5 million, though the list price had by that time fallen $100K lower.

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Much Lower, but Still Sky High
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Condos for Sale
08/08/12 1:01pm

Ken Lay’s Former Condo Has Vanished

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Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
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From the for-sale listings, at least. A reader tips us off that the former Enron CEO’s 12,827-sq.-ft. condo on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon highrise at 2121 Kirby — which with a break or 2 has been a fixture on Houston’s MLS since early 2010 — is no longer listed for sale. Is the property’s owner — Lay’s widow Linda — just taking a summer break, is another re-listing planned, or is something else going on?

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Condos for Sale
01/26/12 12:57pm

Back, Slashed: Ken and Linda Lay’s Huntingdon Penthouse

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Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
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Good news for those of you saddened by the disappearance of Ken and Linda Lay’s gargantuan 33rd-floor Upper Kirby condo from the MLS rolls at the end of last month: Your opportunity to watch the asking price on the castle-in-the-sky penthouse float down to earth is back! Where had it gone? “It appears the Huntingdon high-rise condo at 2121 Kirby was removed from the multiple listing service for a few days so it could be relisted without showing that the price was reduced . . . again,” reports the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson. “That seems to be a common trick of the trade with Realtors.”

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Condos for Sale
01/18/12 11:24am

Where O Where Has Ken Lay’s Condo Gone?

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Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, Upper Kirby
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WHERE O WHERE HAS KEN LAY’S CONDO GONE? Accustomed to seeing Ken and Linda Lay’s castle-like penthouse suite on the 33rd floor of The Huntingdon at 2121 Kirby for sale at a steadily decreasing price month after month (it’s been on the market since the fall of 2009), a reader is shocked to discover that the 12,827-sq.-ft. trifle — at last note listed at $6.99 million, nearly half off its original asking price — is no longer listed on MLS: “Did it sell?” [Swamplot inbox] Photo of 2121 Kirby Dr. Unit 33: HAR

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Condos for Sale
09/29/11 10:23am

Ken and Linda Lay’s Penthouse Condo Now Available for Nearly Half Off

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Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
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That thump you heard? The sound of this 33rd-floor Huntingdon penthouse once owned by Ken and Linda Lay dropping another million dollars. Over the weekend the asking price for the 12,827-sq.-ft. castle in the air fell to $6.99 million. Enron founder Ken Lay died in 2006, shortly after being convicted of 10 counts of securities fraud and related charges. His widow first put this little pied-à-terre at 2121 Kirby Dr. on the market in the fall of 2009, for $12.8 million. By the beginning of this year, it had floated down to $8,875,000.

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Condos for Sale
05/18/10 12:36pm

Ken Lay’s Lonely Castle in the Sky Floats Down Almost 20 Percent

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Crime, Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
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“How much further will it fall?” Swamplot asked back in January, not long after the list price for Ken and Linda Lay’s 33rd-floor penthouse in the Huntingdon on Kirby Dr. was marked down the last time. And now we have a partial answer: All the way to $10.25 million — for now, at least. That’s almost a 14 percent cut from the last price, but just under 20 percent off the initial $12.8 million ya-gotta-try pricing Linda Lay started with.

And really, you want to be coming down in regular increments. What numbers come next?

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Condos for Sale
01/27/10 10:36am

A Look Inside Ken and Linda Lay’s Lonely Highrise Castle Retreat

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Houston Architects, Interiors, Price Reductions, Upper Kirby
34 Comments

Now that photos have been posted — and the asking price has been chopped a full 7 percent — the whole world gets to peek inside the full-floor condo in The Huntingdon that belonged to Enron founder and CEO Ken Lay and his wife Linda. The buildout on the 33rd floor of 2121 Kirby Dr. was designed in the late nineties by Houston architect Leslie Barry Davidson, who’s proven herself versatile in many historical styles that pre-date highrise construction. But the listing photos show what looks like a glum castle retreat for a king and queen who’ve lost their jester.

Oh, but those 360-degree skyline views of Houston! And really, with angry investors and Californians likely to approach from any direction, you’d maybe want a hideout with 4 good corner balconies, just so you can assess the risks:

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Condos for Sale
09/23/09 1:03pm

No, You Can’t See Ken and Linda Lay’s Renaissance-y Highrise Condo

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Highrises, Interiors, Quicklink, Real Estate Marketing, River Oaks
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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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Crime
01/30/08 12:35pm

Historic Preservation, Meet Self Preservation

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Historic Preservation, Home Design, Houston Architects, Interiors, Renovations, Winlow Place
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1704 Kipling St., HoustonNot all recipients of the 2008 GHPA Good Brick Awards will be able to attend this Friday’s historic-preservation awards banquet at the River Oaks Country Club, but some will have better excuses than others. Ken Rice, who along with Sarah Goodpastor will receive an award for the renovation of a 1930 brick duplex at the corner of Kipling and Dunlavy, won’t be able to make it because he’s currently serving a 27-month sentence in federal prison for securities fraud.

Yes, that’s former Enron Broadband CEO and architecture patron Kenneth Rice, who already helped lessen his sentence by testifying against other Enron executives in two separate trials after his 2003 guilty plea. Rice agreed to forfeit more than $13.7 million worth of cash investments, real estate, cars, and jewelry as part of his plea agreement. His sentence included a $50,000 fine.

Rice, 48, could end up serving less than half of his prison term, though.

His lawyers say he hopes to enter a drug and alcohol treatment program available to nonviolent federal inmates that, if completed, could shave up to a year from his term. In addition, federal inmates can reduce their prison time by 15 percent with good behavior. With those two combined, Rice could get out of prison in 11 months.

After the jump, details and photos of a project Rice is likely hoping will count towards that good-behavior credit.

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