Dream home spirals into big bust, now up for auction

Sally Russell had something to prove.

As the 20th century became the 21st, she wanted to build a bigger, more beautiful house than any boys might dare. She would create a dazzling home on Bloomfield Hills acreage, a spec house to top them all. It would be so perfect the buyer wouldn't flinch at its extraordinary price: $14.75 million.

She built it. Nobody bought. And today, in the exclusive neighborhood where the 22,000-square-foot English country house sits on 3 1/3 manicured and terraced acres, the mansion is known as "the Sally Russell house," a dream turned to folly.

As auctioneers plan to sell the home to the highest bidder May 28, it might as well stand for the era that now lies, shattered, behind us -- a time of ever-rising home values, and spiraling expectations, when engineers became aspiring country squires and CEOs lived like potentates, and few imagined that what goes up might just as quickly plummet.

"It was never supposed to be my dream house," says Russell, 60, who wore shorts, work boots and diamond earrings in the home's hotel-sized kitchen.

"It was supposed to be adream house. ... I didn't have a crystal ball."

That's one of the few amenities the house doesn't have.

As its lively creator planned, the home isn't a tract mansion; it's a real one. From its slate-tiled roof over 30-foot ceilings to its laboriously distressed oak floors, from the heated lawn furniture storage to the Art Deco home theater, it expresses Russell's quirky perfectionism. There's acres of custom-wood paneling, ornate wet plaster detail, secret compartments, refreshed air for cigar-smoking in a wine cellar, floors that stay cool in summer and warm in winter, and a granite kitchen island the size of Mackinac.

"When does a home like this ever come up for auction?" asks Pamela Rose, whose auction firm is handling the event, with a minimum "floor" bid of $2.5 million. "It's an opportunity for someone to buy this famous house. It's an icon."

Amid today's distress, it's easy to second-guess Russell. But in June 2001, when she and husband, Chuck Russell, 61, bought a 1916 Spanish-style home on Vaughan Road for a little less than $2 million and demolished it, they felt confident, even lucky, just like many Americans across the country.

Housing values were rising. The new president in the White House encouraged spending. No one imagined that, a few years out, almost half the houses sold in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills would be bank-owned, or that the U.S. Treasury Department would call the shots at General Motors.

"We all envisioned this going in a different direction," says Chuck Russell, who sold his auto supplier, Progressive Stamping, in 1999.

"We all did. That's true all over. I don't think GM is very happy with the way things have gone either."

So many things had worked out for the Russells: They were wealthy, well-liked and cashed out. Chuck suffered medical scares -- two brain operations and one for the heart -- but survived. It was his idea, not hers, to showcase her talents with a spec house on steroids.

Sally Russell, cheerful, blond and blue-eyed, had been licensed as a builder since 1993. Eight years later, her children grown, she'd built one house, renovated many others and longed to prove herself.

After three years, the house was finished. Unfortunately, so was the real estate market.

Listed in 2004, the home's price gradually fell until it hit $7.69 million earlier this year before going on the auction block.

Never lived-in, it stands pristine, from the wine cellar to the top of its three-level turret.

Sally Russell has paid for her audacious plan. Reluctant to detail the financial fallout, she acknowledges her family's once-secure, affluent lifestyle is at risk. They've given up two private club memberships and placed their own home, also in Bloomfield Hills, on the market. "We'll buy a smaller house," if it sells, she says.

How much of their worth have they invested?

For a moment, she is still. "Everything," she says quietly.

The financial pressure of the house is so intense that, she says, "I feel like Atlas holding up the world."

Even so, Russell remains determinedly upbeat. "In denial," she laughs. She still longs for the completion of her grand vision: the house decorated, a happy family lighting fires in the hand-carved fireplace, steaming in the marble shower, watching "The Sound of Music" in the theater.

The Sally Russell house stands complete, as magnificent as she planned,. "I hate to sound Pollyannaish," she says, squinting in the sun. "I try not to be stupid about this. But if we come out of this auction with a purchaser who wants to live there, with a family, it will be a happy ending."

She stops and catches herself.

"Are there happy endings anymore?"