year.
Thirty-seven-year-old Nelson had married the daughter of a New York socialite, and they had twin boys. Nelson was sought after by all the major investment banking firms for his ability to structure mergers and acquisitions in short timeframes.
The national unemployment rate was the lowest it had been in seven years, and jobs were plentiful. Lee began considering the different opportunities for someone with a master’s degree in horticulture. At the Cornell library, he scoured the want ads from big-city newspapers to see what they had to offer.
The Philadelphia zoo had an opening for a zoo horticulturist; a government office in San Francisco needed a director of grounds; and a nursery in San Diego was advertising for a greenhouse manager. But nothing appealed to him. Working in a zoo, while certainly a respectable position, would have garnered too much criticism from his family, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around so many animals and the general public on a daily basis. The director of grounds position in San Francisco was at a girls’ prep school—he couldn’t imagine being one of a few males among hundreds of teenage girls. Managing a greenhouse seemed awfully boring.
Until he could find something more permanent, Lee checked in with Dr. Rad to see if he needed any help. The good news was Dr. Rad had received a grant that would carry him for another year. The bad news was he already had sufficient student help.
After his graduation, Lee told his parents he needed a break after all the schooling and asked permission to stay at their home in Lake Geneva for a few months while he sorted things out. His mother thought it would be precisely what he needed and immediately started arranging to transfer one of their cooks, Shaneta, to the lake house. His father thought he was stalling, and Lee really couldn’t argue with that assessment.
Lee loaded up his ten-year-old Datsun 240Z with his clothes and a few personal items and headed for the lake house. He had received the car for his sixteenth birthday and refused to trade it in for anything newer even though his mother had offered to buy him a brand-new Porsche when he had graduated from college. The Datsun was Lee’s most valuable possession. No one else had ever driven it. It was his and only his.
As he pulled up to the lake house, Lee was immediately reminded of the pretentiousness of the two-story plantation style home. He parked in front of the three-car attached garage and walked to the front door between the twenty-foot-high pillars that supported a decorative portico. While he had his own key, he rang the doorbell to let any of the servants who might be inside know he had arrived. The Evanston servants lived in the Winekoop home in third-floor living quarters, but the lake-house servants had to commute from wherever they lived.
Receiving no answer to the doorbell, Lee let himself inside. The substantial foyer spanned both stories, boasting a large crystal chandelier in its center that hung from a twelve-foot heavy-gauge anchor link chain.
Like the other two Winekoop residences, this one displayed excessively formal decor—ornate furniture, dramatic artwork, elegant draperies on all the windows—too much aesthetics and not enough function in Lee’s opinion. On the first floor were a formal dining room, a large living room with a stone fireplace that took up one entire wall, an African Mahogany Crotch paneled study, two bathrooms, an oversized eat-in kitchen, and a sunroom. Upstairs were five bedrooms and three more bathrooms.
The one room Lee actually liked was the sunroom overlooking the expansive patio that gradually stepped down a couple hundred feet to the lake. He had to admit their landscaper had done an exemplary job of mixing the right combination of greenery, flowers, and seating. He loved the way the radiant orange zinnias and yellow Calibrachoa led down to the boardwalk, giving it a natural look and feel quite different from the
Thirty-seven-year-old Nelson had married the daughter of a New York socialite, and they had twin boys. Nelson was sought after by all the major investment banking firms for his ability to structure mergers and acquisitions in short timeframes.
The national unemployment rate was the lowest it had been in seven years, and jobs were plentiful. Lee began considering the different opportunities for someone with a master’s degree in horticulture. At the Cornell library, he scoured the want ads from big-city newspapers to see what they had to offer.
The Philadelphia zoo had an opening for a zoo horticulturist; a government office in San Francisco needed a director of grounds; and a nursery in San Diego was advertising for a greenhouse manager. But nothing appealed to him. Working in a zoo, while certainly a respectable position, would have garnered too much criticism from his family, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around so many animals and the general public on a daily basis. The director of grounds position in San Francisco was at a girls’ prep school—he couldn’t imagine being one of a few males among hundreds of teenage girls. Managing a greenhouse seemed awfully boring.
Until he could find something more permanent, Lee checked in with Dr. Rad to see if he needed any help. The good news was Dr. Rad had received a grant that would carry him for another year. The bad news was he already had sufficient student help.
After his graduation, Lee told his parents he needed a break after all the schooling and asked permission to stay at their home in Lake Geneva for a few months while he sorted things out. His mother thought it would be precisely what he needed and immediately started arranging to transfer one of their cooks, Shaneta, to the lake house. His father thought he was stalling, and Lee really couldn’t argue with that assessment.
Lee loaded up his ten-year-old Datsun 240Z with his clothes and a few personal items and headed for the lake house. He had received the car for his sixteenth birthday and refused to trade it in for anything newer even though his mother had offered to buy him a brand-new Porsche when he had graduated from college. The Datsun was Lee’s most valuable possession. No one else had ever driven it. It was his and only his.
As he pulled up to the lake house, Lee was immediately reminded of the pretentiousness of the two-story plantation style home. He parked in front of the three-car attached garage and walked to the front door between the twenty-foot-high pillars that supported a decorative portico. While he had his own key, he rang the doorbell to let any of the servants who might be inside know he had arrived. The Evanston servants lived in the Winekoop home in third-floor living quarters, but the lake-house servants had to commute from wherever they lived.
Receiving no answer to the doorbell, Lee let himself inside. The substantial foyer spanned both stories, boasting a large crystal chandelier in its center that hung from a twelve-foot heavy-gauge anchor link chain.
Like the other two Winekoop residences, this one displayed excessively formal decor—ornate furniture, dramatic artwork, elegant draperies on all the windows—too much aesthetics and not enough function in Lee’s opinion. On the first floor were a formal dining room, a large living room with a stone fireplace that took up one entire wall, an African Mahogany Crotch paneled study, two bathrooms, an oversized eat-in kitchen, and a sunroom. Upstairs were five bedrooms and three more bathrooms.
The one room Lee actually liked was the sunroom overlooking the expansive patio that gradually stepped down a couple hundred feet to the lake. He had to admit their landscaper had done an exemplary job of mixing the right combination of greenery, flowers, and seating. He loved the way the radiant orange zinnias and yellow Calibrachoa led down to the boardwalk, giving it a natural look and feel quite different from the
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