Selling The Mansion #6: The Billionaire and The Lady Wrestler

As we began to show the property there was a blur of press coverage and at times we had certain members of the media who would wait by the main gate on 116th to see who may be looking at Indiana's highest profile mansion.  So the calls of inquiry begin and one of the first was from an individual who identified herself as a female wrestler from the WWE.  She gave me her assistant's contact info for reference and asked a lot of questions about the property. The story was she had a home near Cincinnati that had recently burnt down and she would be getting a large insurance check soon and seeking somewhere to live that was already established. A google search did reveal a fire that was attached to her residence so it seemed like there was something to it.  I have to admit, the possibility of Vince McMahon and Terry Hogan driving through Carmel, hanging out the windows waving and pulling up at the main gate of 1143 W. 116th was enticing. It may have been worth a pretty fair part of my commission to see that circus come to town. After multiple back and forths with the assistant following the preliminary phone chat, the trail on Trish went cold....but the thought of that coming to fruition still makes me smile.

About that time we started getting voice mails after hours from someone who identified himself as Howard Rockefeller Hughes the 3rd, the nephew of the late billionaire. Later we would learn that this H3 was the spitting image of Jim Morrison of the Doors. Actually he was the spitting image of Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison (he had already earned the face bloat from drugs and age). The messages were long, rambling, not quite drunk but not quite right, always a bit creepy and usually took up all of the allotted four minutes.  He repeatedly assured us he would be buying the mansion and funds would be wired shortly for his purchase.  On and on they went over weeks, some talking about the property, some angry we hadn't called him back (he never left a number) and some asking question after question about some aspect of the residence.  Finally we got a voice mail from him with a phone number to someone he said could verify everything in Washington, D.C.  So I bit...and called the number. Turns out it was the unpublished number to Howard Dean's office at the Democratic National Committee as in, it was the number directly to Mr. Dean's desk. No, we have no idea why. Mr. Dean never did call back to corroborate H3's story.

One day a few weeks after the last phone message, I got a frantic call from our receptionist.  'Mr Howard Rockefeller Hughes is here to see you.' What? Here in the office? This was going to be good. My office sits about 40 feet around a corner from the front reception area of our offices on east 82nd street.  As I came around that corner Mr. Hughes had decided he'd overstayed his welcome and had turned and walked out of the front door which was a very good thing.  He was dressed all in black from his converse tennis shoes to the full length black trench coat. He glanced back briefly over his shoulder at me and continued walking, all the time clutching something inside his coat under his left arm. Super. In my head I was thinking that because we had taken this project on we were going to be rewarded by having some lunatic shoot up our office. Mr. Hughes walked calmly away down 82nd street.  It would not be the last time he'd visit. greg cooper, east carmel indiana homes for sale, east carmel indiana neighborhoods 46033, top selling carmel indiana realtor agent broker, sold homes in east carmel indiana  

COMING NEXT.....a sitting member of the Grammy's comes to town.