McGreevey - Courier - Buys 1332 Prospect Avenue in Plainfield

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Published in the Courier News, Thursday, June 22, 2006

McGreevey, partner set to buy home in Plainfield
$1.5M house has 8 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms.

By ANGELA DELLI SANTI
The Associated Press

Former New Jersey Gov. James E. McGreevey and his partner are about to become homeowners.

The couple is scheduled to close next week on a $1.5 million colonial in Plainfield, several people close to the couple said Wednesday. The people who spoke to the media did so on the condition of anonymity because the transaction has yet to close.

Several longtime residents said the home's address is 1332 Prospect St., across the street and on the same block as the home of former Plainfield Mayor Albert T. McWilliams.

The home, built in 1914, has eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, five fireplaces and gardens by famed landscape architect Frederick Olmsted, who designed New York's Central Park.

The nation's first openly gay governor and his investment-adviser partner had been shopping for a home in Plainfield for months. They previously had tried to buy a home in the city, but that deal fell through.

McGreevey, 48, stunned the nation by revealing himself as "a gay American" in August 2004. He announced his homosexuality and his intent to resign in the same nationally televised speech.

The former governor has a wife from whom he is separated as well as an ex-wife. He has a daughter with each.

His youngest daughter, Jacqueline, 4, lives in nearby Springfield with her mother, Dina Matos McGreevey. People close to the former governor say he sees the child often and that living close by is important to McGreevey and his partner, Mark O'Donnell, 42.

Neither McGreevey nor O'Donnell were available for comment Wednesday.

The couple plans to move from O'Donnell's Manhattan apartment, where they had been living. That property is on the market. When McGreevey moved out of the governor's mansion in Princeton nearly two years ago, he took up residence in a new luxury apartment in Rahway, which he rented.

The couple's new home, in a historic area of the Plainfield, was originally built for a founder of the New York Stock Exchange. It sits on 1.7 acres and is one of a handful of homes in the area insulated with clay tiles designed by Thomas Edison, people close to the couple said.

After leaving office in November 2004, more than a year before his term was up, McGreevey began work on a memoir with writer David France. The book, titled "The Confession," is due in stores Sept. 19. A national book tour, including an interview on the Oprah Winfrey show, will coincide with the release of the book.

The former governor also has said he would return to the New Jersey Statehouse this summer for the hanging of his official gubernatorial portrait.

Courier News reporter Chad Weihrauch contributed to this story.

http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/NEWS/606220304

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