Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, associations are eeeeeeevil!

When Southampton decided, this fall, to place a limit on the size of all new houses, it settled on twenty thousand square feet, on the ground that that figure represents a reasonable limit, given the big-house norms of the area. At twenty thousand square feet, a house has perhaps ten or eleven bedrooms, a dozen bathrooms, a six-car garage, and maybe, oh, a mini-trading floor for the kids. By comparison, Rennert's house, at forty-two thousand square feet, has twenty-nine bedrooms, thirty-three bathrooms, and two bowling alleys. What the Town of Southampton was saying, in other words, is that twelve bedrooms and one bowling alley is fine, but twenty-nine bedrooms and two bowling alleys is not. Think of the twenty-thousand figure as the community standard—a social consensus—for the maximum size a Hamptons monster home ought to be. With that extra bowling alley and those seventeen additional bedrooms, Rennert just went too far.

“Sagaponack HOmeowners Association vs. Ira Rennert [1]”

It's warming to know that even the insanely stupid rich have problems with associations. Oh, and who is this Ira Rennert to whom a 20,000 square foot home is just too small? Oh, one of those robber barron CEO (Chief Executive Officer) type people (Man with Many Enemies) [2] with a penchant for funnelling money into his pocket.

[1] http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_01_25_t_rennert.htm

[2] http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0722/044_print.html

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