Developer Sean Dunne is facing a planning controversy over a $2 million house he has largely demolished, in an exclusive estate in Connecticut, USA
HAVING DONE the State some service, the developers and speculators who rode the Celtic Tiger for all it was worth are now fleeing the bust in all directions.
The former Anglo Irish chief executive David Drumm has washed up in Boston, the financier Derek Quinlan has landed in Switzerland and now the biggest and best-known builder of them all, Sean Dunne, has moved his family to the leafiest part of Connecticut.
But having left behind a few planning controversies in Dublin, Dunne finds himself in a fresh planning limbo, this time involving what he hoped would be his new home.
The exclusive private community of Belle Haven houses numerous wealthy or famous personalities, including the singer Diana Ross, two billionaires and the former chief executives of IBM and Xerox. Its newest residents, Dunne, his wife, Gayle Killilea, and their three children, are renting locally until they finish renovating their new home on the estate, where the safety of residents is ensured by 24-hour-a-day security patrols.
Work on renovating the $2 million (€1.5 million) house, which was purchased last April, has been suspended after planning officials were alerted that most of the building had been demolished. Planning staff in the local town, Greenwich, say the owners have exceeded the scope of their permit.
Dunne and his family moved out of their home on Shrewsbury Road, in Dublin 4, this year and were seeking to rent it out to an embassy. It emerged in the past month that he was scouting for a base in the US, apparently to pursue new business interests. Word leaked out that his family was renting in Belle Haven, but it wasn’t known before now that he intended a more permanent stay.
You wouldn’t know that 38 Bush Avenue was Sean Dunne’s house from the official records. According to the assessor’s office in Greenwich, the house was sold by Sally S Johnson to Philip Teplen for $2 million last April. Teplen, a lawyer with offices on Fifth Avenue in New York, specialises in immigration issues. He is described as a trustee and only his name appears on planning documents.
According to his website, Teplen has 25 years’ experience in “guiding the way to America” for this clients. He is also involved in the construction industry. His name appears on the “stop work” notice currently in place at the site. He has not returned calls from this newspaper.
It was the sudden arrival of a number of Irish construction workers in the area over the summer that first set local tongues wagging. Some workers were US-based, but others had come over on the plane from Dublin and were relatively unfamiliar with local planning codes.
The house itself was described by estate agents as a “classic Victorian with turn-of-the-century details” on three floors. Dating from 1896, it had seven bedrooms and five bathrooms over 427sq m (4,600sq feet), according to an internet listing. It had a “wonderful port-cochere entrance” (in other words, wide enough for a carriage) and “gracious rooms of great scale with high ceilings”.
Permission was given to carry out internal restoration and add a new garage, family room and kitchen, according to the division of building inspection in Greenwich.
Dick Case, a retired IBM executive who lives next to the house, told The Irish Timesthis week that Dunne introduced himself as the owner of the property and invited him to view the renovation plans in the kitchen of the old house.
In late July the planning and zoning board of appeals in Greenwich heard an application in the name of Teplen to permit additions to the house by varying the required side yard and permitted floor-area ratio.
Case said he supported the plans as he believed they represented an improvement to the neighbourhood. “I was under the impression that things were going to be different from the way they are now. I had a misleading impression.” The application was granted on August 9th. The board found that there was hardship due to “lot shape” and to the fact that the house was built in compliance with earlier regulations that had since been changed. It noted that the proposed alteration would slightly reduce the nonconforming square footage.
Greenwich town hall became involved again after the house was substantially demolished. Officials ordered workers carrying out the work to stop. A notice to this effect, dated October 20th, was put up.
Tom Schupps of Schupps Landclearing, which carried out the demolition work, confirmed to The Irish Timeslast week that most of the structure had been levelled, although he added that "parts of it" were still standing. Schupps said he didn't know who owned the house, but he provided the name of an Irishman who he said was the project manager. This person said he was over from Ireland to work short-term on a US project but denied he was working for Dunne.
An official in the Greenwich planning office told The Irish Times the owners of the house had exceeded the scope of their permit and were therefore ordered to stop work. A permit for additions and alterations had been issued, but what was now required was a demolition permit.
Nicknamed the “squire of Ballsbridge”, Dunne paid €53.7 million an acre for the Jurys site in Dublin 4 in 2005, and paid €207 million for the front blocks of AIB Bankcentre a year later. These and other investments are now worth a fraction of what he paid for them.
Dunne did not respond to attempts to contact him through his PA for this article.
According to Case, Dunne’s new plans for the site are significantly different from his original proposal and appear to be bigger. “However, I still think the property is being improved and its value increased, and that helps me.” No work had been done on the site over the past month, he said. “We have a half-constructed building beside us and we don’t know what’s going to happen to it.”
