ENE's CEO Lay and wife aren't going broke, they have 4 properties in Aspen, three of which they are selling for big $$$$. Now the wife looks like a lair as well:
Enron's Lay parting with Aspen homes
By Nancy Lofholm
Denver Post Western Slope Bureau
Thursday, January 17, 2002 - Three weeks before Enron Corp. filed for bankruptcy, for-sale signs went up on two typically plush Aspen mansions and an undeveloped lot with a prized view of Aspen Mountain.
Enron chief executive Kenneth Lay, the man who guided that company into the largest bankruptcy in American history, was downsizing.
Lay put three of his four Aspen properties on the market Nov. 12 as Enron was crumbling into a morass of worthless stocks and shredded accounting statements. At the same time Lay was directing the Aspen real-estate deal, he was lobbying the Bush administration to help bail out Enron. Three days before the properties were listed, Lay admitted Enron had ov erstated profits by $586 million. Two weeks after the listings were posted, Enron declared bankruptcy, first paying $55 million in bonuses to Lay and other top executives and laying off 4,000 employees.
Lay may have had his back against the wall as details of Enron's collapse unfolded, and he decided to sell off some personal property. But he won't be without a nice, little getaway in Aspen. Lay and his wife, Linda, are hanging on to a 3,015-square-foot, $3 million-plus "cottage" they have owned on Aspen's Shady Lane since 1991. That heavily wooded private lane near the road to Red Mountain is also home to Aspen Highlands developer Gerald Hines and three other part-time Aspen residents.
The Lays' 43-year-old red-shuttered and green picket-fenced home on Shady Lane isn't nearly as lavish as the two homes Lay is selling in Aspen's prestigious West End neighborhood.
One Lay 4,537-square-foot home at 270 North Spring is on the market for $6.8 million. The 4,559-square-foot Lay home that sits along the Roaring Fork River across the street at 285 North Spring is listed at $6.5 million.
An undeveloped lot nearby on Miners Trail Road has a straight-on view of Aspen Mountain and a pricetag of $2.9 million.
"They are premium properties. You can't say enough nice things about the lovely homes," said listing agent Joshua Saslove of Joshua & Co. Saslove said that despite the tanking of Enron's finances, Lay hasn't instructed him to unload the properties quickly in a sluggish Aspen real estate market.
"Like any other sellers, once they put their property on the market they would like to sell it," Saslove said. "But I have no instructions there is to be a fire sale."
Saslove said that he has already had three offers on the vacant lot and that interest also has been high in the homes that are shoe-horned into a neighborhood of similarly pricey manses near the Aspen Art Museum.
The Lays reportedly did not use those homes for the type of lavish entertaining common with Aspen's upper crust. The Lays' five grown children, two of whom work for Enron, mainly used them.
When he was named one of the top 50 CEOs last year by Worth.com, Lay explained why he had homes in Aspen. He said his interests outside his business were skiing in Aspen and cruising in his fishing boat around Galveston Bay. "We have more toys and places than we do time," Lay told Worth.com.
Lay has not been a high-profile part-time resident in a town chock full of celebrities.
"Kenneth Lay? I had never heard of Kenneth Lay and Enron before all this happened," said a woman who has lived in Aspen for more than 20 years. Like many Aspen residents, when talking about celebrities, she refused to give her name.
ABC News has reported that Lay is laying low in his Aspen cottage. But observers note there is no smoke coming from the Lays' cottage chimney.
Saslove said as far as he knows, Lay has not been in Aspen since the properties were listed.
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