'More money than God'

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

Oh for the love of money.

Oh for the pain of having too much?

Multimillionaire horse breeder Amy Tarrant, a native of Burlington, Vermont, first placed her house on the market for $15 million - just 18 months after winning a tax appeal in that city after insisting her home wasn't worth $6.4 million for purposes of taxation.

But she got no offers so she's dropped the price - to $14 million. Bargain!

City officials finally agreed on her tax appeal, giving her a $1.2 million break, bringing the taxable value of her real estate down to $5.2 million. Even at that paltry sum, it's the most expensive house in Vermont's largest city, according to city records. The annual taxes alone are now nearly $141,000.

Tarrant's tax appeal was among dozens that Burlington officials considered after a recent citywide reappraisal. The appellants said their new property valuations were too high. The city lowered a few of them.

But it's the Tarrant appeal that may be the most intriguing, especially because she has, well, so much money.

For instance, Tarrant three years ago paid $5.9 million for a bungalow in Palm Beach, Florida, one of the wealthiest (oceanfront) enclaves in the world that claims the presidential Kennedy clan as longtime property owners.

Tarrant, among 11 siblings, once told Blood-Horse magazine she got interested in horses in the wake of a divorce following 34 years of marriage. She "decided to reinvent my life" and now she breeds fancy horses - besides living part of the year in a (highly taxed) mansion in the shadow of the Burlington, Vermont Country Club.

The private club, for those keeping score, is valued by the city at $4.1 million.