KENNEDY DREAM HOME FALSE
By RICHARD WEIZEL
Published: July 22, 1999
A local architect and town building department officials said there was
no truth to news reports that John F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Carolyn
Bessette Kennedy, were building a sprawling three-story ''dream home''
in this affluent Connecticut suburb near the New York State border.
Alex Kaali-Nagy, an architect and developer who has designed large
houses along the Fairfield County gold coast in Connecticut, said
today: ''I have absolutely no idea how these rumors got started. All I
know is, I turned on the television and saw this very erroneous
report.'' He added that he was building the house in question for
himself and his wife, Karen.
Tom Appleby, news director at News 12 Connecticut, the Norwalk cable
station that broke the story, now says of the broadcast: ''It was done
on the weekend, and we didn't have enough information. The word was
that everybody in town was talking about this, very wealthy people were
talking. Our reporter made the leap of faith. I'm embarrassed.''
Sharon Daley, executive vice president of Country Living Associates, a
real estate agency, said, ''I think these wild rumors got started
because the Bessette family just moved out of town to a home in Old
Greenwich a few months ago and someone might have spotted John Kennedy
Jr. and his wife here during that time and jumped to the conclusion
they were buying a home here.''
She said her firm had handled the sale of the Bessettes' home when they
moved out of New Canaan.