John Thain: Rye Garnet or Harrison Huskie? You Decide!

Unless you live under a rock, you know Rye resident John Thain, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange and former president and COO of Goldman Sachs, has taken a new job as CEO of Merrill Lynch. When The New York Times reported the story on Thursday, it said:

"Merrill directors personally wooed Mr. Thain at his home in Rye, N.Y. At 5 p.m. Sunday, Ann N. Reese, a Merrill director who lives nearby, stopped by his house for a cup of English tea."

Reese, the Executive Director of the Center of Adoption Policy, and a 25 year financial industry veteran including time at private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, lives with her husband Stanley and their children on Rye’s Kirby Lane.

But what about Thain?

Is John Thain a Rye Garnet or does he only play one in the media? In what will be upsetting to Dino Garr and Rye football fans, Thain may in fact be a Harrison Huskie.

Thain apparently owns one of the largest private land holdings in the area–a sprawling 25 acre compound so expansive the Thain family shuttles around the property on a golf cart.

Besides The York York Times reporting the Rye residency, Thain himself reports a 350 Purchase Street Rye address to the Federal Election Commission and one of his daughters reports Rye as her hometown on a Yale University web site.

But upon further investigation, available property records for at least two separate land holdings totaling 13.6 acres show Thain paying taxes to Harrison, not Rye:

• 350 Purchase Street. Records show 10.06 acres in the municipality of Harrison and the school district of Harrison. The property holds a 5,042 square foot house built in 1910 with 3 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, 6 fireplaces, a 3-car garage and a pool.
• Lakeside Drive. Records show 3.54 acres of "vacant" residential property in the municipality of Harrison and the school district of Harrison.

Other property records were not immediately available. A third address on record, 401 Purchase Street, is described as a tax billing address in Rye, but on Google maps and on the Westchester County GIS map above, all three available Thain addresses show up in Harrison, not Rye.

Is John Thain a Rye Garnet or Harrison Huskie?

You decide!

See our UPDATE to this story.