(This story has hooked me. I am not making much of this up, although I will admit to speculating here and there.)

Some winter evening, in 1991, I went to a dinner party at the Barnettπs house in Sconset. The caretaker worked with me at the Muse in those days and, in the depths of winter, she decided to have a dinner party. Flattered to be invited and absolutely delighted to leave my cold Sankaty, found the house and parked.

The Barnett house was my first taste of the Gatsby style on Nantucket. I had heard about it, I had read about it, but I never could actually put my hands on it. Over the central staircase was a five foot Picasso. A Matisse hung upstairs and a whole bunch of Columbian art was set up around the living room. The master bedroom had a TV that rose from the floor to obliterate the view of the Atlantic. In addition, the bedroom had two walk in closets that led to his and her bathrooms. I saw hundreds his shirts hanging in the summer house, along hundreds of womenπs shoes. The dining room was wrapped almost entirely in glass. We were served off of plates painted by Picasso.

Since then, I think about the house and the people that use it for a month a year. I heard that they blocked the Bluff walk with a hedge. I heard that the stiffed the help for money. I heard lots of rumors. Nothing is quite as good as the truth.

WHO ARE THE BARNETTS

Back in 1958, Elliot Barnett moved from New York to Fort Lauderdale and set up a storefront legal practice that seemed to do a great deal of real estate lawädevelopment. He was one of John D. MacDonaldπs villains, apparently. Elliot did very well. By 1985, Ruden, Barnett, McClosky, Schuster and Russell, P.A. was the largest law firm in Broward County with 42 in Lauderdale and 13 in Miami Beach. Today, they are one of the largest firms in the state with eight offices and one in Caracas. He was very active in charity, including the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale's Performing Arts Center Authority and the United Way (where he got an award from Kathy Harris)

At 45, he re-married in 1980 to Bonnie Barnett a woman who was 9 years his junior. She had ≥an art consulting business≤ (echoes of L. Dennis K on that one) and seems to have thrown herself into the social swirl as well. Opera, Film Festivals, Archaeology, and art. Kathy Harris (you remember her) named her to the Florida Arts Council. Currently, she is still deep in that swirl and owns her own business, Heritage House, which creates reproductions of famous art. The house motto: OPTIMUM VIX SATIS" or 'The best is hardly enough'

By 1985, they were living the very high life. A puff piece in the Miami Herald paints an unflattering portrait of American excess. In it, Elliot is quoted as saying "I deplore waste. I don't understand having something you don't use." They go to New York twice a month for business and the parents go to Europe and Paris twice a year. According to the piece, she gets her clothes at Valentino, Vicky Tiel, Yves St. Laurent,. ≥At Chanel,≤ she says ≥I buy eight outfits -- with jewelry. I hate to shop," He shops at Brooks Brothers, where they have his numbers on records. ≥His aversion to shopping is part of the reason, he says, he owns a Rolls-Royce -- bought in 1979, his sixth since 1954. "It's extremely comfortable. It stays in style for a long time." ≥

In 1986, the developer found himself in some swamp when he founded a corporation to develop a high speed rail line between Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. By 1991, they were fighting for an extension. The project bogged down and seems to have finally died. How much money went up with it?

In 1991, they took out a mortgage for the Baxter Road house (although the wife did not know that she was in on this) and set up shop on Nantucket.

IT GETS UGLY

Apparently, some time in 1988, Elliot starts having kidney troubles. Money troubles seemed to fall into line sometime around then because he was forced out of his law firm in 1995 and then pleaded guilty to ≥grand theft for allegedly diverting $222,321.72 of the law firm's money to his own bank accounts. Barnett has said he used the money to pay off personal debts without selling his assets.≤ In other words, he stole from the firm to keep his wife from knowing the real money situation. And the law firm tried to keep it out of court.

Bonnie took the news hard and tossed him out of the house in 1996. At the time of his conviction, he claimed be worth $500,000 with $2000 a month coming from unemployment compensation and 1.4 million in the hole. He weighed 160 pounds on a 6π2≤ body. He left the house with artwork and some of her jewelry.

And he never filed his 1995 taxes. So, you could guess that he stole a heck of a lot more than $200,000 and he still had some of it hidden somewhere.

So, the mess of a divorce begins. Elliot gets sicker and sicker, Bonnie gets angrier and angrier. They go back to the judge 23 times to sell off the property. She goes for seven continuances, all the while arguing that he isnπt coming clean with all the money. He never submits his 1995 taxes and she keeps demanding a full accounting. And with all the art they sell, they donπt sell the Baxter road house during the boom years on Nantucket.

THEN IT GETS DISGUSTING

On Friday, January 30, 1998, Elliot went into renal failure and his health became critical. His lawyer put in an emergency request for ≥bifurcation≤ (which I assume means divorce). That afternoon, the judge heard the arguments. Elliot wanted the divorce now, so as to protect the estate and, I am assuming, utter hatred of his wife. Bonnie wanted to stay his wife until he died, so that she would get whatever he still hadäBaxter Road. The calls the Doctor, gets the bad news, and goes into recess until Monday morning.

On Monday, the court met again, listened to Bonnieπs story about ≥factually incorrect≤ economics, including the value off the art and of Baxter Road house. The judge, in a moment of refreshing candor, says ≥Itπs an unfortunate case and very unfortunate since the inception. If his dying wishes are to die a divorced man, Iπm not going to interfere with it.≤ So, he allows the divorce. Elliot dies the next day. Presumably, Bonnie goes ballistic because she begins to appeal on February 10. Her husband of 16 years had been dead for six days. Her argument was that, since the divorce needs 14 days to become legal, and he died a day later, she was still his wife and entitled to the property (at this point, Baxter Road). The Florida Supreme Court, in the summer of 2000 (During the Gore presidential campaign) ended the argument with a ruling supporting the judge. Bonnie had been divorced.

SO, HERE WE ARE

In her divorce papers, Bonnie claimed to make $3400 a month working in an art gallery. Her most recent biography lists her as up to her neck in the charity social swirl of Florida. In 1998, the year of Elliotπs death and their divorce, Bonnie Barnett received the Arts Encore Award for individual leadership. She just got named chair of the Public Art and Design Committee. Heritage House has expanded, somewhat.

The Baxter Road house, of course, is perched on the edge of the bluff, waiting for next winterπs norπeaster to put it somersaulting onto the Weather Channel. You can still buy it for 1.3 million. Or you could wait for the foreclosure auction.

Who lives there this summer?

Does anyone live there now?