Last weekend, activists protesting bonuses paid to -- and now reportedly returned by -- insurance giant and federal bailout recipient American International Group took a bus tour to the posh mansions of two AIG executives in Fairfield, Conn.
Like most readers of this blog, we're not that interested in houses owned by people we've never heard of before, and we're especially uninterested -- generally -- in homes of boring corporate executives. Every major metro area has tons of high-end homes owned by CEOs and CFOs, but few of those individuals, we think, have the ability to directly resonate with you, the reader, the way an entertainment personality or a sports figure does. But, the news coverage of the bus tour vastly overshadowed the tour's actual significance, with more reporters and photographers in attendance, and along the way, the photographers went ahead and snapped pics of the two AIG executives' homes that the group visited. So, we thought we'd give our readers what news organizations -- strangely -- did not provide: the actual details on the size and costs of the mansions that were visited.
First, the bus-riders checked out AIG Financial Products Executive Vice President and co-leader of North American Marketing James Haas's Colonial-style mansion, which overlooks a private golf course and a creek that flows into Long Island Sound. Built in 1930, Haas' five-bedroom, 4,103-square-foot house on Sasco Hill Road has three and a half baths and a total of 11 rooms, according to public records. The two-story house sits on exactly 2 acres (a 87,120-square-foot lot), according to public records. And, public records show that Haas and his wife, Bailey McClure, paid $5,100,000 to buy the mansion in early 2007 from Howard Sosin, who co-founded AIG Financial Products in 1987 and who famously was ordered by a judge to shell out $40 million to his ex-wife even though she had admitted to having affairs. Sosin left AIG in 1993.
Next, the tour visited AIG Financial Products Executive Vice President for Energy and Infrastructure Investments Doug Poling's house, which is on Golden Pond -- literally, since the house sits on Golden Pond Lane in Fairfield. Built in 1994, Poling's stately, two-story, 7,386-square-foot mansion has five bedrooms, five baths and a total of 11 rooms, and sits on 2.79 acres, according to public records. The 48-year-old Poling, who is the son of former Ford Motor Co. chairman Harold "Red" Poling, purchased the mansion for $1,585,000 in mid-1998, according to public records.
Something tells us that both of these fellows will be looking for new housing -- not because their net worths can't support these mansions, but because they abhor the idea of pictures of their homes being shown on Internet news sites all around the world. Stay tuned.