The original furniture had been sold off, and we tracked it down and measured and replicated it. It was incredibly expensive to buy back. For example, a reclining chair sold for $10,000 about 10 years ago.

We had seen the house on tours by the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation, and we fell in love with it. We decided to buy the home, and negotiated for it for more than a year before we closed.

We thought we could live there and do a little at a time. But it still had the original electric system and it was a fire hazard. Also, it was more cost effective to do everything at once.

Be original; don't be scared of being bold!

[Statements give to the Commission report that the original owners of the home sold it to the other bidders because] they fell in love with the family, ... However, we have a smoking-gun tape recording of a phone message Ms. Moore left on Ms. Miller's machine, saying that the sellers wanted to sell their home to a married couple who would raise their family there.

It's a big con job. We have sold the myth of Dublin as a sexy place incredibly well; because it is a dreary little dump most of the time.