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The latest in the ongoing Tamalpais Bank saga (See previous posts here, here, and here): On February 16 the bank issued two notices of default to New Healdsburg Venture LP for $11.3 million in ADC loans ($8.6 million outstanding), according to Sonoma County records.
New Healdsburg Venture is a partnership run by longtime North Bay developer Bob O’Neel and his daughter Sarah to construct Grant Street Village, a subdivision of two-, three-, and four-bedroom houses in Healdsburg. The unfinished homes only recently started hitting the market. Click on the last link and scroll down to a handy-dandy chart that shows how far below the list price properties have been selling in the area.
Last summer, the elder O’Neel nearly lost his Santa Rosa estate to foreclosure after falling $3 million behind in payments, only to be saved by his son, Robert O’Neel III. But junior has since hit the skids and deserves a case study all to himself for chutzpah during the bubble era:
He had his own Boeing 737 jet, a $385,000 Mercedes-Benz, homes in Hawaii and a $16 million estate being built on a hill in Santa Rosa’s exclusive Shiloh Ridge neighborhood — all by the time he was 45.
Robert W. O’Neel III was living large, brokering real estate deals across two continents with the financial backing of Wall Street and from Sonoma County lenders, including a $3.5 million loan from Clem Carinalli, the county’s largest individual landowner.
And then about two years ago, it all began to fall apart.
As a result of hubris, the collapse of the financial markets or some combination of both, O’Neel’s empire is in ruins, with his partially built dream estate overlooking the Mayacama Golf Club wrapped in protective seal and abandoned.
Go ahead and read the rest.
POSTSCRIPT: Clem Carinalli, Sonoma’s largest landowner? He’s bankrupt too! Yet another real-estate magnate drowning in the onrushing CRE tsunami.
[Thanks to the tipster who alerted us to the situation. We love tips here at Contrarian Pundit, especially leads on investigative stories. Send them in: contrarianpundit at gmail dot com.]
UPDATE: Click here for an update, including links to source documents.
Comments
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 6:36 pm and is filed under High Finance and Misdemeanors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Interesting to see they have listed some of the unfinished homes. I have kept in eye on this project and it has confused me. Some days you would see construction crews working and then ghost town for weeks at a time. Those notices of defaults make sense.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your comment. If you check the Sonoma County Recorder’s website, you will see dozens of mechanic’s liens against New Healdsburg Venture.
How has Healdsburg viewed the project?
[...] Tam Bank has until September to rise above the floor price or face NASDAQ’s guillotine. Of course, the FDIC might just beat them to the punch … by six months. Time to sell that half-finished subdivision! [...]
[...] past the FDIC’s deadline to raise capital, sell itself, or merge with another institution—issued a notice of default on an $11.3 million development-and-construction loan for a half-finished subdivision in Healdsburg [...]