Sean Dunne’s life in Nama: As the Irish shiver ahead of €6bn in Budget cuts, the bailed-out builder lives in this $8m U.S. mansion – while his wife builds another next door

By Michael O'farrell and Valerie Hanley
Updated: 17:55 EDT, 6 December 2010

This is the luxurious U.S. mansion where developer Seán Dunne and his wife are living – even though many of his massive property loans are now owned by Nama.

The $8m house – which boasts an indoor swimming pool, tennis court, billiard and piano rooms – is close to another mansion which his wife Gayle bought and is now refurbishing.

Mrs Dunne has refused to say where she got the money for her €2m property – or how the couple are funding their lavish U.S. lifestyle.

Lavish: Sean and Gayle Dunne are staying at this luxury U.S. estate

Mr Dunne is not a man prone to hiding his light under a bushel – be it his plans to redevelop Ballsbridge at the height of the boom, his two-week rental of luxury yacht Christina O for his second marriage in 2004, or his close friendship with disgraced former taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

But recently, the former ‘Baron of Ballsbridge’ has been spending a great deal of time and effort shouting about what he doesn’t own.

Silence: Seán Dunne, pictured here with second wife, denies he has bought any house in the U.S. and Gayle refuses to answer any questions

For the past month and a half, Mr Dunne has been relentlessly insisting he has nothing to do with the ownership of a luxury home in Greenwich, Connecticut, the weekend retreat of investment bankers and millionaire litigators.

Indeed, throughout that period Mr Dunne has instructed his Irish lawyers – the suitably impressive and doubtless expensive firm of Johnsons – to pursue anyone who suggests anything to the contrary.

Through them, Mr Dunne has denied repeatedly to the Irish Mail on Sunday that he has any financial or active interest in No38 Bush Avenue, a $2m period house in Greenwich that is currently being rebuilt from the ground up.

His lawyers have threatened to take legal action against the paper, insisting that to suggest he owned all or part of the house would be to imply he was guilty of perjuring himself by deceiving Nama.

So when the Irish Times reported that the house on Bush Avenue was his, Mr Dunne’s lawyers swung into action again – eventually forcing the ‘paper of record’ to issue a grovelling apology.

And Mr Dunne was also quoted in the fawning Sunday Independent – the Fianna Fáil-backed paper that, for years, drooled about the greatness of bankers, builders and Bertie Ahern – as saying: ‘I don’t own this house.

'I don’t own any property in the U.S. whatsoever. Nor is any U.S. property including this house held in trust for me or by someone else on my behalf. I can’t be any clearer. I am blue in the face telling people.’

Yesterday, however, the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed the truth: the house isn’t owned by Seán Dunne at all… but it was bought in April this year by Gayle Killilea Dunne, the vivacious former gossip columnist who became the developer’s second wife after a high-octane meeting at the Galway Races in 2002.

Indeed, Mrs Dunne signed the house purchase contract for the property herself: and while No38 Bush Avenue was quickly transferred into a trust run by a discreet New York attorney, the documentation for the transfer was addressed to Mrs Dunne.

Furthermore, the Dunnes have rather indiscreetly told a number of neighbours and employees that the house will be their new family home – once they have completed another $1.5m of renovations on it.

(Plans for No38, submitted to Greenwich planning officials, include a swimming pool and a considerable expansion of the already sizeable home in one of America’s wealthiest communities, which boasts Diana Ross and several billionaires as residents.)

Plush: The house boasts an indoor pool and billiard room

This last weekend, Mr Dunne again said he had not bought the property or made ‘any financial contribution’ to its purchase.

His wife, however, refused to answer questions about where she got the cash, effectively claiming that it was nobody’s business but her own.

But as if this revelation was not enough, the MoS has made another extraordinary discovery: that while the couple are working on the new property, they are staying in a jaw-droppingly luxurious $8m mansion just around the corner.

The gargantuan mansion, which was recently advertised for rent at an eye-watering $17,500 a month, boasts five bedrooms, an indoor pool, a sunken tennis court and two acres of ornamental gardens. It even has a separate room for the grand piano and a billiards room.

And while Mr Dunne has no obvious legal claim on anything bought or rented by his wife – be it a house, a car or a diamond necklace – the fact that his wife owns one key property in question, and the pair are clearly living in the other, raises several questions that the couple are likely to have to answer sooner or later.

Where did Gayle – who has rarely been published in recent years as she trained to be a lawyer – get the money to pay for such a lavish new home?

Why exactly is Mr Dunne so desperate to disavow ownership of a property bought by his wife for the couple and their children to live in?

How on earth are the pair able to live in a $17,500-a-month home while the work on No38 is completed?

And most pressing of all, how are taxpayers meant to feel about any of this, given that Nama has promised us that the developers it controls (and who we are effectively keeping afloat) are going to have to give up their lives of luxury, their mansions and expensive cars?

The sound of money: The property even has a fantastic grand piano

The extraordinary story of the Dunnes in the US goes back to October, when the MoS began investigating suggestions that Mr Dunne had bought a multimillion-dollar home in Belle Haven, the most exclusive area of Greenwich.

On October 27, we dispatched a correspondent – veteran New York reporter Annette Witheridge – to Connecticut to begin asking questions. It became immediately clear that the property in question was No38 Bush Avenue, which was in the process of being renovated.

Public documents showed it had been purchased in April for $2m and that a $1.5m renovation was planned.

The property’s exact ownership was not clear: it was registered in the name of a trust controlled by a prominent New York immigration lawyer, Philip Teplen.

But as soon as Miss Witheridge began asking questions, a string of people involved in the sale and renovation of the property told the MoS that the property was the Dunne family’s new home.

Miss Witheridge reported that she went to the area and asked which property was Seán Dunne’s: two neighbourhood security guards immediately identified No38.

Miss Witheridge then reported that Belle Haven estate agent David Ogilvy, who put the house on the market in 2008, told her he had shown Mr and Mrs Dunne around the property before the sale was completed by another local agent.

Mr Ogilvy also confirmed that the Dunnes had spoken to him about starting over in the US, according to Miss Witheridge’s report, which quoted him saying: ‘They both seemed perfectly amiable and want to start a new life in America. I can confirm Mr Dunne is the owner and I have seen him out and about here a few times.’

Those involved in the renovation of the property said they believed Mr Dunne was the owner and that he had taken a keen interest in the project. ‘I’ve met Mr Dunne on several occasions to go through the plans. I did the surveying work,’ said Irish surveyor Aidan McCann.

Some though were less forthcoming. ‘It’s under the name of the trustee, Mr Teplen. I can’t say anything about Mr Dunne,’ said project architect Cormac Byrne.

When the MoS contacted Mr Teplen, on the afternoon of Friday, October 29, at his desk in New York, he said he could not speak. ‘You have caught me at a bad time,’ he said.

‘I have three people sitting in front of me. But I will call you back if it is something I am involved in and can help you.’

He never returned the call.

Stinking rich: The marble-floored hallway and ornate dining room

On the same day, Miss Witheridge received an unsolicited telephone call from a man identifying himself as Keith Lynch. Mr Lynch said he’d just had a meeting with Bush Avenue’s architect, Mr Byrne, and surveyor, Mr McCann, and that he wanted to clear up some rumours.

Mr Lynch said he was working on the house with Steven Dunne – son of Seán Dunne – and that the project had nothing to do with Seán Dunne. He added that Seán Dunne had looked over the project but that was all.

On Saturday, October 30, Mr Dunne’s solicitor contacted the MoS to say Mr Dunne had been informed that the MoS was making inquiries. The lawyer stated that Mr Dunne was not ‘actively or financially’ involved in the development and that any such suggestion was unfounded.

The solicitor indicated that since his client was in Nama, the suggestion that he had bought a new home would imply that he had been untruthful, guilty of perjury and had deliberately sought to avoid his obligations under the Nama process.

Palatial: The Dunnes¿ $17,500-a-month mansion

The MoS agreed to withhold publication pending further inquiries and promised to give Mr Dunne 48 hours’ notice of any publication.

Miss Witheridge spoke to estate agent Mr Ogilvy again. He confirmed that he understood Mr Dunne was the owner of the property. Her report quotes the agent as saying: ‘It is Seán Dunne’s house… I went to the place with them a couple of times. Trust me, it is not his son’s house.’

Miss Witheridge spoke to Martha Drake of Sotheby’s, the agent who acted for the now-deceased seller of the house. Miss Witheridge quoted Mrs Drake as saying: ‘Seán Dunne bought the house but I don’t know what they are doing with it. But it was Seán Dunne.’

Meanwhile, another set of security guards identified photos of Mr Dunne and Gayle and said they had seen them walking in the area.

The MoS notified Mr Dunne’s lawyer of all of these comments and raised with him the possibility that Mrs Dunne might own the property, just as she owns Walford on Dublin’s Shrewsbury Road, Ireland’s most expensive house – which was bought in 2005 for €57m but is also held in a secretive trust.

This time, the denial stated that Mr Dunne had no interest, financial or otherwise, in No.38 Bush Avenue, that it was not being held in trust for him and that he did not have any ownership rights, and that he had not transferred funds to anyone else in order to facilitate the purchase.

But the lawyers added pointedly that they did not act for Gayle.

Oasis of calm: The rented house has 2.4 acres of ornamental garden, with views of the Atlantic

Then, on November 21, the Irish Times published two articles stating that the Dunnes had purchased No.38 and that renovations had been ordered to stop because too much of the home had been demolished.

The next day, Mr Dunne used the unquestioning Sunday Independent to issue his denial that he owned any US property. ‘I am sick to death of it,’ he said.

However, the MoS had contacted a neighbour who lives alongside No38. He did not wish to be named in our article but provided a statement that he has agreed can be passed to Mr Dunne’s legal team – and has confirmed that if challenged, he will stand over it publicly.

The neighbour, a retired executive with a world-wide brand, said he had met Seán Dunne a number of times to talk about No38.

‘From the beginning, he introduced himself as if he were going to live at No38 with his family. He used the word “neighbour” several times and I always understood he was talking to me as if he were planning to be a resident,’ the statement reads.

‘I subsequently met Mr Dunne on several occasions casually in the street and always came away with the same impression.’

The statement confirms that on November 14, Gayle called round to present a copy of revised plans for the home. ‘In every meeting up to and including November 14, when Mrs Dunne brought us the new plans, I was given the impression that the Dunnes owned and were going to live at No.38 as our neighbours,’ it reads.

The document details how Mr Dunne had irked some residents by flouting local noise rules.

‘I also complained about the noise of construction work on Saturdays, something our community rules forbid. Following the complaint, Mr Dunne came to my home and sat with me to discuss the matter.

He told me he did not have to obey the community rules since he was only legally bound to obey the town rules.

Tell tale signs: Gayle Dunne is snapped and the family is shown outside the luxury mansion

‘I would suggest to him that if he is interested in the reaction of the community to his project, he ought to be interested in the reaction of the community to the rules.’

The neighbour had been quoted by name in the Irish Times article – and says this provoked a furious reaction from the Dunnes.

‘On Saturday, November 20 I received a telephone call from Mrs Dunne, who complained and asked me why I had spoken to the Irish Times,’ his statement reads.

‘She insisted that she and her husband were only acting as the developers for No38. Later that day, Mr Dunne called from Ireland and asked me to sign a retraction. I refused and told him that I had said nothing other than what I had always believed to be the truth.’

So far, so unclear. Mr Dunne’s lawyers continued to send aggressively worded letters to the MoS, demanding that we assure them we would not suggest that he owned the house. Meanwhile, Mrs Dunne refused to answer questions.

Mr Dunne’s lawyers also repeatedly claimed the MoS was maliciously invading the Dunnes’ privacy: we pointed out that, given that taxpayers were funding the €80bn cost of Nama and the €150bn cost of the bank bail-outs, there was a clear public interest in pursuing this story.

Finally, this week, the MoS uncovered documentary evidence that Mrs Dunne had indeed bought No38. A copy of the actual house contract – verified by the MoS – confirms that the property was purchased in the name of Mrs Dunne on March 29, 2010.

Above her husband’s name – which is crossed out – the contract is signed ‘Gayle Killilea Dunne, purchaser’.

Work in progress: The house, No38, that is being done up. But is it by the Dunnes?

Other documentation related to the home is also addressed to Gayle Killilea Dunne before it was transferred into the name of ‘Philip H Teplen, Trustee’ on April 14.

The contract was secured with a $200,000 deposit, with the balance paid on completion of the sale.

Having established these facts, the MoS this weekend went back to Mr Dunne’s lawyers to ask two simple questions: Where did Mrs Dunne get the money to buy the house? And did Mr Dunne give her all or any of that money?

As we awaited an answer, the most bizarre twist in the tale was yet to come.

On their way back from visiting the Dunnes’ new neighbours at Bush Avenue, the MoS team asked a local if he knew where Seán Dunne was living.

He immediately pointed our reporter and photographer to No.421 Field Point Road – just a few hundred yards from the new property.

In the driveway, visible from the open road, was a silver Lexus Jeep of exactly the type driven by Mrs Dunne.

Could the Dunnes, despite Seán’s extraordinary debts, really be living in a house like this?

Owned by George Khouri, 63, and his wife Barbara, 62, the five-bedroom, 14,000sq.ft mansion is set in 2.4 acres overlooking the Atlantic. Built in 1923, the home was on the market in 2007 for more than $11m and, last February, was selling for $8m.

According to an article in the Greenwich Times, the property was recently rented for $17,500 a month.

Steeped in history, the property was first owned by Montgomery Evans, a man of letters and friend of Ernest Hemingway and Sylvia Pankhurst. Another Evans friend was the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, who relished in his nickname ‘the Great Beast’ and was once described as the ‘wickedest man in the world’.

But the most striking thing about the home is its opulence. A sales brochure highlights crystal chandeliers, the sumptuous bathrooms, the music room and the billiards room, with its deep-pile red carpet matching the felt on the table.

It beggars belief that the Dunnes could afford to live in such high style and it certainly contradicts Nama’s public utterances.

In May, chief executive Brendan McDonagh told a Dáil committee that indebted developers ‘displaying obvious wealth [are] almost in defiance of us.’

Just two weeks ago, chairman Frank Daly told the Oireachtas that Nama would be strict on developers who continued to be in denial about their lifestyles.

‘The jets, the yachts, the Bentleys will not be supported by Nama,’ Mr Daly said.

Yet the Dunnes are living in just such style in their €17,500-a-month mansion. Any lingering doubts were erased on Friday afternoon as Gayle cruised out through the gates, heading for a spot of shopping in Greenwich town.

On Saturday night, Mrs Dunne said in a statement that ‘her place of residence and her finances are not legitimate matters of public interest’. She claimed that, despite her high profile career as a writer, in which she often talked about her own life, she was ‘not a public person’.

She added that she had ‘no bank debts with any bank covered by the Irish Government guarantee and for absolute clarity is not the subject of any Nama loans.’

She also said she was ‘not obliged to answer media queries of any nature’. What she did not say, though, was where she had got the money to buy and renovate a $2m house – or how she was able to live in a $17,500-a-month mansion in the meantime.