RFK Jr. and late wife didn't pay for many of renovations to make Westchester mansion eco-friendly
For the Kennedys, it was easy being green.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his late wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, didn’t pay a penny for the high-end kitchen appliances, dual-flush toilets, solid brass and zinc faucets, hardwood flooring and hypoallergenic rugs when they created their eco-friendly Westchester mansion. Even the bamboo hangers and the cleaning products were free — a $1.3 million bonanza of swag.
Now five months after Mary Richardson Kennedy’s suicide at the sprawling estate in Bedford, her husband is set to make a windfall.
RFK Jr. claims he already has a buyer after listing the house last week for $3.995 million. He and his first wife bought the original 1920 clapboard farmhouse on the site for $745,000 in 1985.
Kennedy married Mary Richardson in 1994, and they were raising their four children in the house, which flooded in a 2003 storm.
Mold infested the home and made it uninhabitable. The Kennedys, along with interior designer Robin Wilson, crafted a plan to raze it and rebuild with as little outlay as possible.
Contractors and vendors donated their services or slashed their rates for the promise of free publicity. There were offers of “platinum sponsorships” and talk of tours to showcase the mansion and its products. Home-improvement TV host Bob Vila started filming a show chronicling the construction, “Our Green House,” for NBC. It does not appear the show ever aired.
“He didn’t think he should pay for anything; even the suits he wears were donated,” a source said of RFK Jr. “He felt people should pay for him. He had an enormous sense of entitlement.”
Bedford town records show the cost of the renovation project was $2.5 million, but it’s unclear if that includes all the freebies the family got. They took out a $1 million loan in September 2009, records show.
The project was a win-win for the Kennedys and Wilson. The family even got a tax deduction for donating the remains of the old house to a nonprofit.
Wilson got a book deal out of it, writing “Kennedy Green House” to highlight her work.
Wilson portrays the Kennedys as being financially squeezed as the project went over budget and they lived in a rental home during construction, which started in the fall of 2008.
RFK Jr. could hardly be described as poor. He is a professor of environmental law at Pace University and in 2009 earned $2.2 million in speaking fees alone, according to someone who saw his tax returns.
Yet Wilson was calling vendors asking for free bulletin boards.
Scott Kochlefl, who owns Ideation Design Services Inc., said he thought it was odd that the Kennedys would ask for a handout of his product — an eco-friendly alternative to a corkboard. He supplied seven boards worth $189.87.
The kitchen was designed for free, and the craftsman who did the bookcases and fireplace mantels charged half his rate.
Jeff Bridgman, an antique-flag dealer, loaned the couple some 35 framed flags to hang on their walls in a kind of rotating art gallery.
Builder Jim Blansfield, who led the two-year construction project, said he charged “very, very much less than what I would normally charge. I felt the project had great merit.”
Blansfield said he was proud of the house, but it has not resulted in any increase in his business.
The Kennedys showed off their newly finished estate to reporters in April 2010.
But the couple’s marriage was already in shambles. RFK Jr. filed for divorce a month after the press tour and moved out in 2011. The TV show never aired.
Although Mary Richardson Kennedy — an architect by trade who is barely mentioned in Wilson’s book — was involved in every detail of the project, she resented the house being used as a showplace, according to the source.
“It wasn’t a private place for her and the kids,” the source said. “It was like living in one of the windows at Macy’s.”
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