The rich are pushing it. Now it’s not enough that they get to live in compounds. They get to NOT live in them, too.
This month, a listing dropped for a brand-new, custom-built, nine-bedroom, 13,500-square-foot, $45 million ... let’s call it a cottage ... on Nantucket’s Cliff Road. The listing was notable not just because $45 million would set a Massachusetts record for private home sales, but because the house, which is being sold furnished, wasn’t built to be flipped.
Rather, the owners spent two years creating their “dream home” and then reportedly decided at the last minute that — you know what? — never mind!
It’s not that they soured on Nantucket (thank God). As my colleague Claire Thornton reported, it’s that they allegedly didn’t want to move out of their other Nantucket home, which is located on a part of the island that’s “a bit more rural,” according to the listing agent, Greg McKechnie.
My first thought was, you’ve got to be kidding me. But once I got past the absurd notion that Cliff Road, with its trust-fund hedges, is suddenly some kind of urban sprawl, I realized that I can relate.
Foolhardy purchases happen to me, too, although in my case they typically and serially involve jeans, in which I come to believe that this latest pair is my “dream” denim — all that’s standing between me and happiness.
Once smitten, not only do I splurge, I pay for expedited shipping. Alas, as sure as day turns to night and the return window closes, I eventually accept that the pants are a disappointment, and what I really want are the jeans I already own — my good old rural jeans.
I slink into a consignment shop babbling about the tags still being on, but even so, I accept a fraction of what I paid so I can put the failure behind me (and, inevitably, clear the way for the next boomerang purchase).
I’ll return to 33 Cliff Road in a moment because so many questions remain (had they already packed the junk drawer?). But in the meantime, you know who else I suddenly understand — who also seems poised to sell an asset for less than he paid for it? None other than billionaire tech mogul Michael Dell.
He’s put his 4,110-square-foot Millennium Tower penthouse up for auction, and as the Globe’s Catherine Carlock reported, a decade ago, an LLC connected to him paid $10.9 million for the unit. Now, he’s asking $6.5 million or less.
Alas, his home isn’t quite as unlived-in as 33 Cliff Road, but when you read the listing, you see that it’s trying: “Never truly lived in,” it reads.
Truly? Seems kind of hedge-y. What’s it hiding? Maybe the Dells did periodically pop by but never cooked in the Christopher Peacock kitchen, “bespoke” though it may be? Or perhaps they never unpacked and simply rummaged through their suitcases for clean socks as needed. I do that in hotels all the time.
Or... maybe the Dells just kind of forgot the place even existed — a risk for the over-housed.
Consider this: In 2023, the Globe Spotlight team examined records for 10 of the city’s most expensive buildings — where the average assessed value of the units topped $3 million — and only about one third of the units had owners who took a residential tax exemption (claiming it as their principal residence).
If you don’t check your financial statements, or if you’ve paid in cash, I can see how you could forget about a little compound or penthouse altogether. Oh, right! The Millennium Tower place!
Once again, I can relate. I don’t even want to think about how much I’ve dropped on recurring monthly charges for meditation apps I don’t even remember signing up for.
Returning to 33 Cliff Road. The sellers have been identified online as James Alban IV and his wife, Garland Alban. They’re heavy equipment royalty — part of the family that started the Maryland-based Alban Tractor Co. in 1927. (In 2020, Alban was acquired by another equipment company for an undisclosed sum, and I have no idea how many real estate purchases that deal triggered.)
Here’s what is publicly known: The Albans bought 33 Cliff Road for $14 million in 2024, tore down the existing home, worked with Hehir Group Custom Builders, Botticelli & Pohl Architects, and likely an army of throw-pillow PhDs, and then … what?
The place was built from the ground up and furnished. As anyone who’s even so much as renovated a tiny bathroom with a partner will appreciate, that’s a lot of work. Decisions need to be made about everything — brushed nickel vs. polished chrome; wine cellar vs. climate-controlled wine room; boot cut vs. cropped . . . oh wait, those are my jeans.
After all that, how did the “let’s stay put” decision go down? Did they walk by one day to check out their new property and start to “joke” about preferring their existing home? Did one spouse confess to the other, I just can’t do it?
When I spoke to McKechnie, the listing agent, I didn’t get the blow-by-blow, but he told me something that was, in fact, mind-blowing: Even though they’re not moving in — minor detail — they enjoyed the whole process.
As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”
Truly.
Beth Teitell can be reached at beth.teitell@globe.com. Follow her @bethteitell.