In 1995, former NYSE CEO John Thain bought a Westchester estate for $3.7 million; the roughly 10-acre property carries five addresses and stretches across three New York municipalities
A 10-acre estate in Westchester County, New York, owned by former New York Stock Exchange boss John Thain, is so large it stretches across three different towns and has five separate street addresses. The property at 350 Purchase St. sits across the borders of the City of Rye, the Village of Rye Brook, and the Town of Harrison. Public records show the main house is 13,172 square feet, sitting on a lot of about 438,000 square feet. Built in 1910, it’s one of the few private homes in the area split across three separate local governments, according to local news outlet Rye-Harrison News. Thain and his wife, Carmen, bought the estate in 1995 for $3.7 million. A November 2007 report by the New York Post described the full scale of the 14-bedroom mansion. At that time, the property had two swimming pools, a clay tennis court, several beehives, and a private stream running through the backyard that fed into a lake stocked with fish. Property records show Thain has been listed at the address since at least 2006, and federal election filings have regularly listed a Rye address for him.
Local impact and taxes
Owning a property that crosses town lines creates some unusual paperwork. By 2007, tax records cited by the New York Post showed Thain was paying more than $150,000 a year combined to the Town of Harrison and the City of Rye. More recent tax figures for the property were not publicly available. The sheer size of the estate has drawn comments from neighbors over the years. In a 2007 interview with the New York Post, one neighbor described just how big the grounds are. “The place is huge. I have seen him riding around the perimeter… it probably takes him 20 minutes to get from the front gate to the back,” the neighbor told the outlet. The property came back into local attention on Sept. 19, when community website MyRye.com featured Thain in a profile series about notable local residents.
Career on Wall Street
Before buying the Westchester estate, Thain built a long career at the top levels of American finance. He spent more than 20 years at Goldman Sachs, eventually becoming president and co-chief operating officer. In 2004, he became CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, leading the organization until 2007. He then became chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch just as the 2008 financial crisis began. While there, he negotiated the firm’s $50 billion sale to Bank of America, a deal announced on Sept. 15, 2008, during the height of the banking crisis. His time at Merrill Lynch ended suddenly in early 2009 after public backlash over bonus payments made to executives right before the merger was finalized. After leaving Wall Street, commercial lender CIT Group named Thain chairman and CEO in February 2010, according to National Public Radio (NPR). He led the company through its recovery from bankruptcy before retiring from CIT Group in March 2016.
Recent board roles and community work
Beyond his corporate career, Thain has stayed active in company boards and local conservation work. He joined Uber’s board of directors in September 2017, during the company’s move toward going public. Thain and his wife also serve on the Board of Managers at the New York Botanical Garden. As major donors, they helped fund the restoration of the garden’s 50-acre old-growth forest in the Bronx, which was later named after the family. Despite his business roles in Manhattan and on boards across the country, the Purchase Street estate remains Thain’s main home, spread firmly across three different Westchester communities.
