Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

We can only presume that your house doesn't have one of these:









Yes, it looks like a phone line, and you do probably do have a phone line in your house, but this is no ordinary phone line. This a unique phone jack that can't be tampered with, is untraceable, and can only make outgoing calls to one destination----the offices of the CIA.





You see, our new home has had 3 owners prior to us in its history. We researched everything we could find, and could only find 2 owners, but the age of the date of purchase for owner 2 didn't mesh with the age of the house. Thankfully, that very same owner 2 came by today to tell us the history of the home, including the whole story of owner 1. Fascinating stuff.





The house happens to have been built by a man who was Ronald Reagan's legal advisor on foreign affairs. I can't remember his name, but will try looking it up. The CIA line is in what was the Library--it will be our home office. When built the house had a lot of great features that have since been removed---a pool, a greenhouse, a moat, and an 8 foot high stone wall that went all around the house, with occasional turrets on it--why would someone remove these things????





So, if that wasn't interesting enough, we then went on to find that they also bred Andalusian Draft Horses, and the barn and the riding arena were built with the house to support this small hobby of the Mrs. If you aren't sure what an Andalusian is, they are like a Cydesdale, but pure silver white. They are native to Spain and though a draft breed, are very elegant, and typically shown in Dressage. A photo is below:







We are really thrilled with all this history, but the story gets even better. The Mrs. who hails from the West Indies has an Aunt that passes away. The Aunt leaves her a $10,000 (pounds sterling, don't have that symbol handy), monthly allowance. They don't report this to the IRS. There was likely a lot of other things that they didn't report to the IRS since legend has it that the builder (who still lives in the neighborhood, and probably isn't lying), was paid to build the house in diamonds.



So where this tale of espionage takes us is an IRS Summons--attorney gets called to appear, and rather than appear, disappears in the dark of night leaving the house and all the belongings behind. He stayed out of the country for 10 years to wait for the statute of limitations to run out. He had the deed of the home held in a tax shelter--an offshore corporation in the Cayman's, and they auctioned everything off, so he didn't even lose money on the sale to the IRS.

Owner 2, a Dentist, came to the auction to buy a vehicle left at the home at the auction (a Porsche). He didn't get the car, but he did buy the house, and the rest, as they say, is history.