Frank Dunn, who was fired as chief executive of Nortel Networks in April 2004, is building a luxury lakeside mansion in Toronto's upscale Oakville neighborhood, according to a report from the Ottawa Business Journal. The house, when completed, is estimated to have a value of between $12 million and $15 million.

Dunn acquired the property for a reported to $4.3 million before he took over the top job at the Canadian telecom from outgoing CEO John Roth.

The former CFO of Nortel (nyse: NT), Dunn was "terminated for cause" when an audit of the company's books for 2000, 2001 and 2002 and for the first and second quarters of 2003 led to the reissuing of its financial statements. Despite regulatory and criminal investigations, no formal charges have been made against Dunn.

In May, shortly after leaving the company, Dunn took out a $3 million mortgage on the property.
Sperling's Spree

Peter Sperling is on a buying spree. Last March the son of Apollo Group founder John Sperling purchased a San Francisco mansion for $32 million. Now, according to the Los Angeles Times, the 43-year-old has also bought Vincent Price's old estate in Holmby Hills for near the $16 million asking price.

Sperling can obviously afford buying and owning as many houses as he likes. Along with his father, he entered the ranks of the Forbes list of the 400 Richest People in America in 2002 with a fortune estimated at 1.1 billion. For the 2003 list, his net worth increased to $1.5 billion.

The source of the Sperling's wealth, the Apollo Group (nasdaq: APOL), is the for-profit online college University of Phoenix, which had 2003 sales of $1.3 billion

Sperling is acquiring the property from former NBC golden boy Scott Sassa, who in June became chief executive of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based social networking site Friendster. Sassa, who had headed NBC's West Coast operations, had also spent nine years at Turner Broadcasting System, launching TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies and four other networks and helped to launch Fox's cable network.

The 1.8-acre estate, where Price lived in the 1960s, was built in 1927. It is said to have eight bedrooms, 10½ baths and 10,600 square feet, as well as a pool, cabana, tennis court, gym and guesthouse. Price, a versatile character actor who made his name in such classic horror films as The House of Usher and The Bat, died in 1993 at the age of 82.

Stephen Shapiro and Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency, Beverly Hills, had the listing
Maycroft Homes

The almost 44-acre Maycroft Estate in North Haven on Long Island has been sold for $20 million to an unnamed buyer, according to a report in the New York Post.

The estate, which is located near Sag Harbor, is one of the largest on the pricey South Fork and had been on the market for $25 million. It has more than 1,000 feet of coastline, woods, wetlands and a decaying 18-room, Queen Anne-style manor house built in 1885.

Built by wealthy New Yorker James Herman Aldrich, the property was left by his wife, Mary Gertrude Edson Aldrich, to the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island upon her death in 1921. In 1952 the diocese granted it to the Teachers of the Children of God, an Anglican order of nuns, for use as their mother house. The nuns ran a school there, named after its founding mother, Abbie Loveland Tuller, until 1993. The Tuller School, which is no longer affiliated with the church, closed its doors in June.

After the nuns ceased using the estate as its mother house, the diocese asked for the property back. The nuns refused and sued the bishop. The lawsuit was eventually settled when the court ordered the diocese and nuns to sell the estate and split the profits 55-45, respectively.

That set off a competition between the village of North Haven and local real estate agents to see who would get the property. The village wanted to preserve the land and convert it into a community center or park, while the real estate agents wanted the opportunity to sell one of the area's largest estates. The agents won. Under current zoning regulations, a developer could divide the estate into more than a dozen multimillion-dollar lots.

Article © Anywhere Communications All Rights Reserved