Photo courtesy the Toronto Star
Some wealthy men surround themselves with a harem of beautiful women, but not Conrad Black. Instead, he's surrounded himself with a harem of beautiful estate homes and other properties. Estate homes have added more investment fortune to Black's wealth, and will likely add more soon, once his estate home in Palm Beach, Fla., listed for sale at $36 million, is sold to the right buyer. That's not all of Black's homes, either.
His entire property collection is valued at around $100 million and includes his mansion in Toronto's upscale Bridle Path area, valued at around $32.5 million, if you include some additional property. Two mansions are rare for anyone to own, but Black owns much more than that. Here are some properties the Toronto Star managed to dig up while doing research on Black's real estate holdings:
Black also has an 11-bedroom townhouse complete with indoor pool and gym in Cottesmore Gardens near Kensington Palace in London. It is reported to be worth £14 million, or more than $32 million (Canadian). Black was quoted in a London newspaper saying it has been shown to buyers.In New York, Black owns a Park Avenue apartment valued at up to $10 million (Canadian). It originally was purchased for his use by Hollinger International but Black now owns it personally, although it is the subject of a dispute between Black and International.
It could literally be said that Conrad Black owns much more than a Hundred Acres, and those are just a few in his diverse harem of assets.
This post was originally posted at Hundred Acres, the world's first real estate community weblog.
Article comments
1 - Jason Koulouras
It would appear that Mr Black is a seller of property at this time.....he better hide the proceeds from Hollinger who is looking for at least $400M from him
2 - Aidan Maconachy
Pity Conrad sold the National Post. We need him in Canada. WE are not at the mercy of the Liberals.
Come home Conrad!!!
3 - Aidan Maconachy
While he hasn't been conclusively damned in a court of law, there is no doubt that Conrad Black has a battle looming. To what extent his legal troubles have been engineered by people with an agenda is difficult to assess. I for one am reserving judgement on questions of guilt or innocence.
As a newspaper man Conrad Black brought a viable alternative to the status quo in Canada. He was able to inject energy and excitement into a media climate that was jaded. He did so in the face of widespread derision and contempt on the part of Canadian liberals - who react to any populist right wing development like a landlord confronting trespassers.
I can't imagine any aspirants who come even close to matching Black for sheer audacity, vision and depth-of-pocket. It's back the same old, same old unfortunately... the usual Canadian "media think" that is so predictable - it's almost numbing ...
4 - Aidan Maconachy
I've been following the case against Black and it doesn't look good.
If in fact he is guilty of these crimes, he will have to pay the price. In addition to Hollinger investors, he will have let a lot of people down who looked to him for reasons that had zero to do with dividends.
5 - Aidan Maconachy
MSM have done a job on this, but we have finally had a chance to hear from Lord Black and his team. My hunch is that a lot of the analysis in the media was driven as much by schadenfreude as anything approximating objective journalism. This thing is far from an open and shut case.
I was glad to see that Lord Black is in fighting form and ready for the rumble ahead.
6 - Aidan Maconachy
I keep picking up this thread every time I get new info, and it's been a hard one to call.
Right now if I was a betting man I would say his Lordship is going down despite the best efforts of his team.
Liberal attempts to demonize Black have been based so far on evidence that has been pretty damn flimsy. However, if my sources are even close, my hunch is that he could well be looking at some serious time.
7 - Aidan Maconachy
...and if he is found guilty, fuck him!
I've had it with CEO's who are already loaded, playing the system in an attempt extort every last available cent. These hoods are bad poster boys for capitalism.
8 - cat
aidan this is cat. i dont comment on blgos usually but i spotted this and as im here thought i would add on a thought or two. black has a well known history in canada and what surprises me is that there were no charges long decades ago. that donation to the opera was just pr. talk about cynical!!!
9 - Aidan Maconachy
$500,000 I think it was - chump change by Warren Buffet standards.
I wish he had stayed with newspapers. I still have a soft spot for the old devil I have to admit. His brand of panache is a rare commodity these days.
The larger issue for me is the culture of corporate corruption. If he is conclusively shown to be culpable, no amount of charm and philanthropy will redeem him. Most of us have lost any tolerance for rip-off corporate culture - even if the perps do happen to be highly literate, charming and connected.
10 - Aidan Maconachy
I’m imposing on the site’s hospitality a little here, so thanks in advance.
To any friends who follow my comment, I’m switching to a new nick which I’m sending by email to selected parties. I would have posted this on my blog but I’ve been having a heck of a time keeping my blog on Google. Its brand new and has a low rating and zero links, so the Google crawler has been relegating it to the basement. However you can access it off here by clicking on the url.
So as of June 16th I’m formally retiring the “Aidan Maconachy” signature.
11 - pat
I’ve been back and forth on this too. I liked National Post when CB was behind it because it offered a real alternative. Now its pretty much just any other Canadian paper. When the peerage row was going on it did seem as though Black was being made public enemy number one by Chretien. So when the charges surfaced it looked on the face of it much like more of the same. But, you have to ask if innocent men break into offices at night to remove boxes of documents. He condemned
himself in the eyes of a lot of people with that. The charges against him mainly cite bogus
non-compete payments used to funnel around $40m. That’s a lot of money by most standards, even by corporate standards. We don’t know as yet what Radler is revealing, but if there is enough there I tend to agree that CB may be in a serious pickle. Prison will be very hard on poor CB. Won’t be any high society soirees. Cruel and unusual punishment!