The Specter Of Wealth

It’ll give you a sense for The Teller‘s varied and worldly interests to let fly with a quote from one of our favorite authors, Nathaniel Philbrick.

Philbrick, a longtime resident of Nantucket, once noted "the almost schizophrenic way daily life is haunted by ghosts from the island’s whaling heyday."

In a way, it’s a shame Nantucket has gone from the headquarters of the American whaling industry – run by a cadre of pious, hardworking Quaker merchants – to a mere summer camp for the wealthy. It could use a visitation, a bona fide haunting.

And The Teller has just the place for it. Whoever ponies up $59 million for the 70-acre estate recently listed for sale on Nantucket is probably due for a good Beetlejuice routine.

The property, and the 20-room, 9.5-bathroom home that sits upon it, once belonged to recently deceased automobile components magnate Russell Dale Phelon. Phelon paid $7.1 million for the place in 1997, and then set about completely rebuilding it as a gentleman’s farm.

The Teller is reasonably certain whoever buys the Polpis Harbor palace won’t be the commonsense, industrious sort found alongside Phelon in the manufacturing sector. These days, that kind of cash comes from hedge fund crybabies and other Patrick Bateman types.

Yes, the ghosts of the crew of the whale ship Essex, gnawing on the bones of their executed comrades and singing "Day-O" would make fine visitors to 260 Polpis Road.

And that reminds The Teller: So would Mitt Romney. Until now, the most expensive "single-family" home sold on Nantucket was about $28 million.

What better way for Mitt to play to his base than to show some competitive spirit, come "home" and shell out something in the neighborhood of $59 million for a farm on a dune halfway to the Azores?