STREET SMART off Burying Hill Road — Named after Henry J. Topping, son of the president of Republic Steel, who married Rhea Reid, only child of Daniel Grey Reid, president of the American Tin Plate Company. Reid commissioned William Tubby to build an extraordinary Jacobean mansion on forty backcountry acres for Rhea, who called it Dunnellen Hall after her mother Ella Dunn. It was completed in 1918 to the tune of a million dollars and by 1927 totaled 208 acres as Rhea added more land to the property. Probably the most famous and infamous of Greenwich estates, Dunnellen would witness unusual trauma over the years. Rhea and Dan’s sons—Daniel, Henry and Bob —rode up and down the grand staircase on their motorcycles and threw wild parties. Daniel, who owned the New York Yankees, married six times, counting among his wives Lana Turner and Norwegian skater Sonja Henie. Bob was married five times, once to his brother’s ex-wife Arlene Judge. In 1950 the Toppings sold the estate to Loring Washburn, a respected Greenwich businessman and sailor. His wife, Mary Buckner Royall, loved to entertain lavishly, often giving out party favors from Cartier. These were happy days in Dunnellen. The next occupant was Gregg Sherwood, a showgirl with expensive taste. The settlement from her stormy marriage to auto tycoon Horace Dodge enabled her and her handsome new husband, Daniel Moran, a former New York City cop, to buy Dunnellen in 1967. In Palm Beach, at one of their three other houses, Moran shot and killed an unarmed intruder, a young
BRUCE PARK DRIVE,
downtown — named for textile merchant and philanthropist Robert Moffatt Bruce who, 100 years ago, deeded his land and mansion overlooking the Sound to the town for an art, natural science and history museum.
Robert Bruce HEKMA ROAD, backcountry
off North Street: named for utilities magnate Jacob Hekma (1879–1949) who bought the estate called Semloh Farm in 1929. (Semloh is the name of the original owner Edwin T. Holmes spelled backwards.) The former estate is now home to the Stanwich Club. HENDRIE AVENUE in
Riverside: named for Charles Hendrie, a former sea captain, who helped Jeremiah Atwater, Amasa Marks and Luke Lockwood develop Riverside. LAFAYETTE COURT,
downtown: named for General Lafayette, French solider and statesman, to commemorate his visit to Greenwich in 1824. The Reverend Isaac Lewis of the Second Congregational Church officially greeted him and took him for a walk down Put’s Hill.
64 • W E L C O M E T O G R E E N W I C H
Dan Topping and Sonja Henie
unemployed busboy wearing a wet bathing suit. The showgirl would wind up bankrupt and Moran would shoot himself, but they had managed to sell Dunnellen to the flamboyant Jack R. Dick and his wife, Lynda. A supposed cattle baron with a history of fraud, Dick would be tried for forging invoices from well-known art galleries to ascribe huge values to his art collection. He died of a heart attack while being chauffeured home from the trial. Next came Ravi Tikkoo, owner of a huge fleet of oil tankers. His beautiful wife became enamored of her bodyguard and left him living alone for four years in the most expensive house in Greenwich. And in 1983, Harry and Leona Helmsley bought Dunnellen for $11 million. Eventually, the widowed Queen of Mean would be sentenced to four years in prison and fined $7 million for income tax invasion. But she still had enough money when she died in 2007 to leave $12 million to her elderly Maltese, Trouble. The estate went on the market again, only this time for a whopping $125 million.
Dunnellen
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
downtown: probably renamed for the Hamilton family who lived in the southernmost house on what was originally called Quarry Road. It was the only access to the granite quarries opened on the nearby shoreline in 1870.
TOPPI N G R O A D
TOPPING ROAD HAMILTON AVENUE,