But he never liked that dumpy little third one, so eight years later he made a deal with the new owner of the front lot-cost him another fortune in landscaping-but he got the original driveway back. and anyway, he sold the corner lot that held the start of that driveway, so he had to build a third driveway-a little one in the back that he could actually use. But he didn't have the money to get that paved, so it turned to soup when the weather went bad. so Joe had to build a new one around the front-which was great because everybody who drove in would have to see the whole place. But Joe couldn't buy all the land that held the right of way, and then he pissed off the owner of the front lot, who put boulders in the driveway. When he moved in, the old winding driveway led from Montchan Drive.
So there were weeks when Joe was down in the basement, in a moon suit, ripping out asbestos. He had to hire a guy to clean that out, but the guy wanted too much money for labor.
Meanwhile, the place was chock full of asbestos. He lived in fear that the place would need a new $30,000 slate roof. Of course, he didn't have the money, so he had to sell off a couple of lots.
So the second year, he had to get storm windows for the whole place. Squirrels were living on the third floor. First winter, first three months, he used three thousand gallons of fuel oil. He got in the developer's face and started talking-fast.Īnyway, when he moved in, he started finding out about the place. But Biden never let money stand in the way of a deal. Some developer was going to knock it down because the four and a half acres were worth more than the house. He was snooping around Greenville, streets of his dreams, when he saw it, all overgrown, boarded up. He was driving around, like he did back then. Joe found it one night, a couple of years after he became a Senator. It's the kind of place a thousand Italian guys died building-hand-carved doorways, a curving hand-carved grand staircase that Clark Gable could have carried a girl down, a library fit for a Carnegie, or Bernard Baruch, someone like that. And the house is gorgeous, an old du Pont mansion, in the du Pont neighborhood called Greenville, outside Wilmington. The first thing you've got to know about Joe is the house. Probably the first thing he'd show you, anyway. You talk with Biden about anything.
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