To the Risoldi family, it was the symbol of the finer things in life that come with great influence and wealth.
To the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, it was a centerpiece of greed, narcissism and fraud.
To neighbor Charlotte Sanders, the six-bedroom, 5½-bath home rumored to be modeled after the New Jersey governor’s mansion was “a bit gaudy.”
The two-story white mansion, with its Greek columns and wraparound porch set behind a brick and black metal gate, stood out along the rural two-lane Stony Hill Road in Buckingham on Saturday afternoon.
But it wasn’t the oval-shaped sign trimmed in gold against a black background announcing the address that caught the eye.
It was the smaller, plastic signs with red background planted outside the fence line. The ones with white block-style letters that spelled out “AUCTION” and pointed toward Clairemont, the former estate of its namesake, Buckingham socialite turned convicted felon Claire Risoldi.
The mansion and its surrounding 10 acres are scheduled to be sold to the highest bidder Saturday, with the proceeds used as restitution to the insurance company she was convicted of fleecing.
Risoldi, 71, currently is serving a 30-day jail sentence for a 2016 contempt of court finding. Next month, she is scheduled to be sentenced for filing $13 million in false insurance claims following a 2013 fire at Clairemont.
Her son, Carl A. Risoldi, and his sister, Carla Risoldi, surrendered the property to the state under a plea agreement that allowed Carl, who also was accused of insurance fraud in the 2013 fire, to plead guilty to misdemeanor theft and attempted theft charges and avoid jail.
The Florida auction house handling the sale anticipates it will be one of their most unique. At the only open house over the weekend, dozens of potential buyers toured the grounds.
Some visitors, such as Sanders, were there strictly out of curiosity. Was the inside as over-the-top as the stories they heard during the four years the case lingered in the court system?
Most left disappointed.
Clairemont has never recovered from the 2013 fire. The house was largely stripped down to its wood skeleton. Only a few fleeting signs of its former glory remained.
Two ornately carved wooden door frames surrounded hand-painted scenes depicting 18th and 19th century country life. Random scroll relief work was stamped in plasterboard and carved into fireplace mantles. The wrap-around mahogany wood staircase and banister appeared unscathed. So did a carved, arched window frame atop the stair landing. Aside from burned debris in its drain, a shower stall with gold fixtures in a second-floor bath appeared ready to use.
While damaged, the infamous center hall ceiling mural depicting the Risoldi family as Roman soldiers and royalty amid cherubs, stallions and clouds still is as clear as the blue sky background.
“Look, they are looking down on us smiling,” one man said.
Few people climbed a metal ladder that provided the only access point to the attic, where the 2013 fire started. While the causes of that fire and two before it were ruled undetermined, some visitors Saturday expressed lingering skepticism.
“The property is gorgeous,” one woman said. “Put up something more in keeping with Bucks County and that doesn’t burn so easily.”
Inside a detached garage, at least a dozen scorched and singed paintings leaned three and four deep against walls, some with unblemished “Best of France Antiques” tags still attached. Pieces of furniture were stacked near two disassembled Eiffel Tower models, and a cardboard box containing diet supplements.
“Is there a Rembrandt out there?” one man asked his wife.
No, she replied. But she found a few marble toilet seats.
In the basement was a shelf half filled with abandoned toys, a baby stroller, Windsor back kitchen chairs, a pet carrier and a pair of Rosary beads hung on a metal baker’s rack, with “Pray for Us” written on the back.
Richard North, who said he was a Realtor scouting the property for a client, estimated it would cost $1.6 million to renovate the home. Black mold growing behind the white siding and foam insulation has to be removed professionally, he said. A severely damaged roof hidden under white tarps has to be removed and replaced, he said.
The cheapest option for the new owner would be to tear down the house and start over. He estimated the demolition cost at $100,000.
Those costs, he added, are in addition to whatever the buyer spends to purchase the property, which could make profit margins super thin.
“We’ll get a lot of people who come out, but it will be mostly voyeurs,” North predicted. He guessed no more than six people would bid.
The property has generated interest among local real estate agents, according to Mark Henderson, the founder and lead auctioneer for Auction World USA, which is contracted with the state to sell the property. Eight area real estate brokers have arranged private tours, he said.
In his 40 years in business, Henderson has sold million-dollar celebrity-owned homes and penthouses, along with Housing and Urban Development and bank-owned properties. In the Philadelphia area alone he has sold 385 properties over the last three years, he said.
But Clairemont represents what he called a new kind of sale.
Claire Risoldi and her first husband, Carl P. Risoldi, bought the house for $900,000 in June 2000, according to county property records. Claire sold it to her children for $1 in December 2004.
The Bucks County Board of Assessment lists the market value of the property at $1.3 million.
The online real estate marketplace estimates the property is worth $1.6 million, but that is in move-in condition, Henderson said.
How much the property will sell for is a wild card, Henderson added.
The recommended opening bid for Clairemont is $700,000, he said. But it could sell for less. Or more.
“That is the part that is really, really interesting,” Henderson said. “It’s going be fascinating sale. It’s a wonderful property but it obviously takes a very specialized buyer. The short story is it probably would require someone with deep pockets.”
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