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Sunday, Jun. 21, 2009

Historic Cave Hill estate in foreclosure

Cave Hill, the historic Lexington estate that once served as the state's temporary governor's mansion when John Y. Brown Jr. was in office, is in foreclosure and scheduled to be sold on July 27 at a Fayette County master commissioner sale.

Bruce Fein, a Washington D.C. constitutional lawyer, and his wife, Mattie Fein, own the property. They bought Cave Hill from Brown in July 2006, for $1.9 million.

The 17-acre estate, the site of elegant parties while Brown was governor, has a 7,500-square-foot residence — the original portion was built in 1821 — pool, tennis courts, a three-bedroom guesthouse, putting green and horse barn.

The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"John bought that house for me, right after we got married, " said former First Lady Phyllis George. "It was my dream house. I wanted an old Southern mansion with big white columns."

In the past three years, the fortunes of the stately house and once immaculately groomed grounds have fallen on hard times. It is abandoned, neglected and a judge has ordered it be sold to pay the mortgage that the owners have defaulted on.

The historic mansion has been empty since it was purchased by the Feins, according to Mattie Fein. The couple put it back on the market in December 2006 for $2.45 million.

Glass in the back door has been broken out and trespassers jimmied the lock to get inside, said George, who has seen the mansion. Wood floors are warped from water damage. The recent ice storm left the lawn littered with broken limbs and downed trees, which have not been cleaned up.

"Talking about it breaks my heart," George said.

The Feins bought Cave Hill after spending two weeks at the Kentucky Horse Park in May 2006 while their two daughters competed in a hunter-jumper horse show.

"It hit us this would be a really wonderful place" for the children "to have a really wholesome environment," Mattie Fein said at the time. She grew up riding and showing horses.

Bruce Fein, an assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, writes a weekly column for the Washington Times and Slate, an online political magazine. He and his wife own Lichfield Group, which produces political shows for television and does celebrity public relations.

According to court records, Cave Hill went into foreclosure after the Feins defaulted on a $1.3 million mortgage from Logan Asset Back Fund, a private lender in Boca Raton, Fla. The mortgage was held by Cave Hill LLC in the spring of 2007, but personally guaranteed by the Feins.

Six months later, the Feins and Cave Hill LLC stopped making the $16,800 monthly payment on an interest-only loan, states a lawsuit brought by Logan Asset Back Fund.

Court documents show that in the spring of 2008, the couple filed for divorce.

Coldwell Banker McMahan Co., a Lexington real estate firm, joined the Logan Asset lawsuit, claiming that a $15,000 check from the Feins as deposit on the purchase of Cave Hill was returned for insufficient funds.

"There's been a lot of controversy about the place and why it got into this situation," Mattie Fein said in a phone interview from a Maryland horse show. "It was simply two people deciding they were not going to be married anymore."

In her divorce action, Mattie Fein said she's asserting that equity in Cave Hill belongs to her. "All the money for buying Cave Hill came from my family's money. Obviously, that was something we wanted to protect," she said.

Telephone calls to Bruce Fein were not returned.

Last month, Fayette Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone ordered Cave Hill be sold by the master commissioner to raise $1.3 million, plus additional costs including interest and taxes. If the sale does not raise the needed amount, he ruled the Feins would be held individually liable.

The foreclosure sale is set for noon, July 27, in the first floor courtroom in the Circuit Court building.

In her phone interview last week, Mattie Fein said she had a buyer for the property and had signed a contract the previous evening to sell Cave Hill. She declined to give the purchase price or the prospective buyer's name except to say he did not live in Kentucky and was not in the Thoroughbred business.