THE Yankees always talk about the House That Ruth Built. Let me tell you about the house that Judy built.
Judge Jerry Sheindlin‘s wife, Judge Judy, has a brand-new nice little place. The queen of the small screen built herself a stone castle maybe two bidets smaller than Buckingham Palace. Turrets, hand-forged iron gates, it lacks only a moat.
The compound includes the guardhouse plus guesthouse, pool house, four-car garage, staff quarters, five acres of gardens with fountains, statues, benches, urns and a pond featuring enough koi or carp or flounder to feed the first seating at Le Bernardin.
Give or take a roll of Charmin, it’s 13 bathrooms with gold-plated fixtures, three floors, 24,000 square feet, eight bedrooms, including a “snoring room” off the 75-by-42 master suite (should Jerry get noisy), 10 hand-carved marble working fireplaces, 26-foot-high ceilings, a conservatory without which no house should be and, says decorator Martin Kuckly: “I did a hotel in Nantucket that’s smaller.”
Builder Mark Mariani calls the kitchen area/family room the largest in the state of Connecticut. It seats 40. Its fixture is a 1920s, 14-foot bronze job found in an antique shop in Stamford. The thing had to be disassembled, trucked in and took days to get hung.
Judyville includes a red plush fully equipped theater with 50 seats, candy concession stand and popcorn machine. At another end, a wine cellar. The Plaza doesn’t have such a wine cellar. Also a heated pool and spa and massage room. Also playroom with pool table, pingpong table, etc. Also large state-of-the-art gym with enough gear to sprain ligaments you never knew you had. Also for Judy personally – who’s size 2 and, even standing on her IRS forms, only 5-ish feet tall – an enormous custom tub hand-carved from Rosa Aurora stone in Portugal. Says Mark Mariani: “I put in a small drain so we don’t lose her.”
The main house uses 500 light bulbs. Sighed Martin Kuckly, who with daughter Nicole decorated the whole interior: “Wait until she gets her first Con Ed bill.”
OK, so why? Understood that when you make Forbes’ list of the richest and you pocket $42 mil a year – give or take a few bucks – you’ve outgrown that studio apartment you had as a family court judge. But . . . still . . . why? . . .
“Why not?” said Jerry, circling the 23 acres in one of their golf carts. “We had it rough in our early years. Both had family before we met. We even married, divorced and married each other again. We’ve celebrated our 30th anniversary. Our five kids and 11 grandchildren are taken care of. We’re no longer in our 20s. If not now, when?”
The Judge Judy story, the world knows. Twelve years ago a civil servant sending five kids to school, buying discount shoes, underwear at Costco, driving a secondhand car. Today if you’re on safari in Africa, TV’s local bush station plays “Judge Judy.” She now says: “Most people build their dream house and then they divorce – but we already did that. So . . . we’re entitled.”
There’s a mile of walkway, half a mile of stone walls, 20,000 square feet of limestone terrace, outdoor dining area in an orchard amongst fig trees, apple trees, grape vines. One day an army of flatbed trucks with 500 men unloaded 17,000 plants, 3,000 American boxwoods, 60 Norway spruce more than 20 feet tall, 36 mature copper beech trees, a few kilometers of grass, and pushed ivy across 300 tons of stone to look like it grew there 200 years.
All done in three months. Start to finish. Judy and Jerry spent 60 seconds OK’ing the site. An existing house was razed. The pit dynamited to go lower. Builder/contractor/architect/landscaper Mariani employs 260 people full-time who do the onsite masonry, millwork, painting, stonecutting, whatever. They worked 24/7. Sunday nights, triple crews under floodlights. All windows, tiles, outlets, trims, plumbing, trusses, moldings, beams were in hand before he even broke ground. He owns his own tree farm. He says: “My people don’t smoke, play golf or do lunch. If I need lumber on a Sunday, I can get it. I live on the job.”
The Kucklys pushed their suppliers and vendors. And Judy’s mantra? “If fabric needs to be ordered, forget it. There’s plenty around. Pick something else.”
The $40 million outlay would’ve doubled had artisans, excited to make this their showplace, not contributed certain talents at cost. Jan. 30 permits were secured. May 8 the house was ready. With Regis Philbin as a witness, one who couldn’t believe this was possible bet $10,000 it couldn’t be done. A little short on cash, the Sheindlins took the money.
In the interests of full disclosure, Judy and Jerry are my devoted friends. I love them. Saturday’s stormy, rainy tornado-ful night, a few people came to see the house, and temporarily the electricity went out. “No lights,” exclaimed one. “But look,” said Judy. “No leaks.”
Only in Connecticut, kids, only in Connecticut.