MONTREAL - Desperate for a final sale, John Hooper was willing to accept an auction result that he felt undervalued his Hudson estate by millions of dollars.
But with the highest bidder no longer returning his calls, Hooper has been forced to put the luxury estate back on the market for the $3.4 million it won in Quebec’s first absolute auction last month.
“The final price, it wasn’t the best price but it allowed us to do what we wanted to do. We weren’t trying to be greedy. We just wanted to move on with our lives,” said Hooper, 70, an entrepreneur and scientist, who helped build the now defunct company Phoenix International Life Sciences Inc.
“Now it’s clear that the buyer hasn’t fulfilled her obligations. We don’t know what the cause is because we can’t reach her.
“They (the U.S. company that ran the auction) are unhappy. We’re unhappy.”
Sources familiar with the estate say the buyer, despite making a $100,000 cash deposit, didn’t have adequate financing to complete the transaction.
The auctioning of the sprawling eight bedroom estate, complete with an indoor pool, guest house and secret passage, generated national headlines.
While luxury homes have been successfully sold to the highest bidders in Montreal and Toronto, an absolute auction – where there is no minimum bid – is unheard of in Canada.
Even worse, Hooper’s spent money out of pocket on glossy brochures marketing the property and on expensive advertisements in papers like the New York Times.
To sell the estate that Hooper and his wife spent $5.5 million to develop in 2000, the couple are inviting prospective buyers to spend a weekend at the mansion on Main St., as an “innovative” way to close the deal.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Hudson+mansion+buyer+returning+calls/5204187/story.html
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