Castles made of sand

The Vineyard Gazette has been reporting for several months about the Schifter house along the eroding shores of Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick.

Now The Wall Street Journal has picked up the story with a front-page story in its Mansion section.

"There's a dramatic scene currently under way on Martha's Vineyard. To keep their 8,300-square-foot house from plunging off an eroding bluff, the owners are moving it back 275 feet. The estimated cost: at least $1 million.

"The stone and wood-shingled house, built in 2004, has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a massive basement with a bowling alley, according to public records. All of that—plus a 1,814-square-foot guesthouse and a garage—is going, much of it to the 4-acre property next door that the owners bought in January for $4.5 million for that purpose.

"The move involves digging underneath the basement, moving the structure through a trench and then refilling the hole with soil. Still, that pales in comparison to what the house cost to build: The current appraised value of the buildings and the land is $7.6 million, but contractors put the cost of rebuilding the main house alone at around $10 million.

" 'If I'd spent all that money on the house, I'd be moving it, too,' says Edward Vincent Jr., chairman of the Edgartown Conservation Commission." (Owner Richard Schifter, a partner at private-equity firm TPG Capital, declined to comment.)

As Jimi Hendrix sang, "And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually."

In Memoriam

Oak Grove Cemetery ~ Vineyard Haven
From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.
— Abraham Lincoln

Fishing Expeditions

Same old, same old. Evasive, sophomoric and intellectually lazy talking points delivered by yet another junior administration puppet, who essentially reads a script saying don't look here at the facts, look over there at the Republicans who are "offensive" and trying to make a scandal out of nothing. Candy Crowley would be proud.

As CBS's Bob Schieffer said so pointedly, "Why are you here today?"



And here are excerpts from an illuminating editorial from The Wall Street Journal -The IRS Scandal Began at the Top.

"President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an 'independent' agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

"But that's not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn't need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he'd like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

"Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do. 'He put a target on our backs, and he's now going to blame the people who are shooting at us?' asks Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot.

"The president derided 'tea baggers.' Vice President Joe Biden compared them to 'terrorists.' In more than a dozen speeches Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. 'Nobody knows who's paying for these ads,' he warned. 'We don't know where this money is coming from,' he intoned.

"In case the IRS missed his point, he raised the threat of illegality: 'All around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates . . . And they don't have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don't know if it's a foreign-controlled corporation.'

"Short of directly asking federal agencies to investigate these groups, this is as close as it gets. Especially as top congressional Democrats were putting in their own versions of phone calls, sending letters to the IRS that accused it of having 'failed to address' the 'problem' of groups that were 'improperly engaged' in campaigns. Because guess who controls that 'independent' agency's budget?

"The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see. In his Tuesday press grilling, no question agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney more than the one that got to the heart of the matter: Given the president's 'animosity' toward Citizens United, might he have 'appreciated or wanted the IRS to be looking and scrutinizing those . . .' Mr. Carney cut off the reporter with 'That's a preposterous assertion."

"Preposterous because, according to Mr. Obama, he is 'outraged' and 'angry' that the IRS looked into the very groups and individuals that he spent years claiming were shady, undemocratic, even lawbreaking. After all, he expects the IRS to 'operate with absolute integrity.' Even when he does not."

Tax Man

Christopher Weyant ~ The New Yorker

Space Oddity

Out of this world.

Red Gate Farm - Lots for Sale

Peter Simon

Two lots on the Kennedy family's Red Gate Farm on Martha's Vineyard have been put on the market.

According to the Vineyard Gazette:

"Two undeveloped lots totaling 93 acres from the 377-acre Red Gate Farm were listed for sale this week. One lot is about 53.5 acres, fronting the Atlantic Ocean, with an asking price of $25 million. The second lot is 39.5 acres with more than 1,000 feet of frontage on Squibnocket Pond, deeded beach access off Moshup Trail and an asking price of $20 million.

Red Gate Farm is owned by Caroline B. Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg. Ms. Kennedy’s mother, the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, purchased the property in 1978 from the Hornblower family for $1.1 million."

That means the property was purchased 35 years ago at a rate of  $3,264 per acre. Today the 53.5-acre parcel is priced at $467,289 per acre, while the smaller 39.5-acre lot is being marketed at $506,329 per acre. Assuming the Kennedy's sell at their asking price, they'll realize a pre-tax profit of $44,900,000, while still retaining 284 acres, or 75 percent of the original parcel. Public records show the land and building tax assessment for the Kennedy's 106-acre 3 Red Gate Farm estate is $16,528,200.

Go figure.

September 30 postscript:

Online real estate listings this past weekend revealed 10 percent and 17.5 percent price reductions on the 50- and 40-acre Red Gate Farm lots.

Bomb Threat - Please Call 911

I'm sitting in the consultation room after this morning's colonoscopy on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

When my doctor came in to discuss the results and show me a few photographs from the procedure,  I saw this phone on the wall over his shoulder.

238 milligrams of Miralax and 10 milligrams of Ducolax will do that to you.

A Boy and His Atom

Scientists from IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled the world's smallest movie, made with one of the tiniest elements in the universe: atoms. Named "A Boy and His Atom," the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS -verified movie used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action.

"A Boy and His Atom" depicts a character named Atom who befriends a single atom and goes on a playful journey that includes dancing, playing catch and bouncing on a trampoline. Set to a playful musical track, the movie represents a unique way to convey science outside the research community.

Think big data, storage and ever smaller devices. Coming soon to a store near you.