Chapter 4 - The Mansion Made Us Look More Stable Than We Were
We moved into the Westchester house three years before the dining-room incident.
Purchase price:
$3.8 million.
Large.
Expensive.
Not some inherited palace.
Grant had received a significant bonus after his employer sold a portfolio of properties.
I had inherited roughly:
$620,000
from my father after estate settlement.
We used:
both
toward the down payment.
The mortgage was substantial.
The taxes were:
absurd.
But our combined income supported it.
At least:
originally.
Then Grant left his employer.
He told me:
“I’m tired of making other people rich.”
He launched a small investment partnership called Whitmore Residential Partners with two former colleagues.
They planned to acquire:
distressed luxury homes,
renovate,
resell or rent.
Grant invested:
almost all of his liquid savings.
Then interest rates moved against them.
Renovations ran over budget.
One partner withdrew.
Two properties sat unsold.
Grant stopped discussing:
numbers.
I asked:
“How bad?”
He said:
“Timing problem.”
That became his phrase.
Not:
loss.
Timing.
Meanwhile my career improved.
I became director of design operations for a national architecture firm.
Base salary:
$186,000
plus bonus.
For the first time in our marriage, I earned more predictable cash than:
Grant.
Something changed.
At first:
jokes.
“My wife’s the sugar mama.”
Then:
questions.
“When does your bonus hit?”
“How much is in your separate investment account?”
“Why does your mother still own Sophie’s 529 instead of us?”
Us.
But “us” increasingly meant:
May you like
Grant had access.
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