Page 23 - MJM3_2_FULL_RCD

Basic HTML Version

M
T
his is a good time, it seems, to pick up a grand estate or two, as
the following profile indicates.
There are few Montecito estates as iconic as Val Verde or El
Fureidis, both architecturally designed by Bertram Goodhue.
For Val Verde, Lockwood de Forest, Jr. added landscaping
elements such as tall, bold, cypress hedges, reflecting pools, terraces, an atrium featuring
Ravenna marble columns, a six-sided stone baptistery and other details that gave the
estate its world-renowned stature. At El Fureidis, it was also the landscaping that greatly
enhanced the estate: reflecting pools, “champagne” fountains, cascading pond waterfall,
and exotic plants, along with a palm-lined grand driveway to the main house.
So, it is surprising that both estates – built originally at the turn of the 20
th
century
– should end up, however briefly, in the possession of one man. That he came from
another country is even more unusual.
Forty-four-year-old Russian-born Sergey Grishin graduated from the Moscow
Institute of Electronics and worked his way up to become President and Chairman of
RosEvro Group, a consortium of six Russian companies anchored by RosEvro Bank
Holding. Sergey is reportedly a billionaire; we can’t confirm his net worth, but he
definitely has assets beyond those of the most affluent among us. By our reckoning,
there are 14 billionaires with primary residences and/or second homes in Montecito;
Grishin would make it 15.
Sergey has officially immigrated to the U.S. and he, his wife, Anna, and their nearly
three-year-old daughter, Arina, have been full-time residents of Montecito since the
spring of 2008. He first visited – and discovered – Montecito ten years ago.
Within the span of little more than two months, he purchased two of Montecito’s
Great Estates: Val Verde (in August 2009) and El Fureidis (at the end of September
2009). His plan was to renovate both.
He purchased Val Verde (for about $15 million) through bankruptcy proceedings
after the Austen Val Verde Foundation ran into financial difficulties. Sergey says it was
“a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to acquire such a treasured estate, and he simply
couldn’t pass it up. Barely three months later, however, he apparently had second
thoughts about attempting to renovate the two estates at the same time and arranged to
sell Val Verde to the homeowner adjacent to the property who already owned a four-acre
portion of the estate that had been the split off in the 1940s.
It was a beneficial deal all around: Val Verde now contains virtually all the original
11 acres and most of the secondary structures it had been designed with. And the 10.5-
acre El Fureidis, which historian David Myrick writes was, “one of Montecito’s most
beautiful estates of all time,” is under renovation by Grishin.
winter
|
spr ing
23
M