A Resting Place To Die For
Leona Helmsley is going out in style. Her new digs are a [$1.4 million mausoleum] in suburban Sleepy Hollow, next to her late husband Harry Helmsley. Made of granite, the 1,300 square-foot mausoleum features a stained-glass recreation of the Manhattan skyline and Doric columns.
Helmsley, who eventually controlled her husbands hotels and all of his [vast holdings], died of heart failure at home in GreenwichConnecticut on August 20th. She was 87.
Depending on who you ask, she was either The Queen of Mean, the name that became forever associated with her during the trial that ended with her 1989 [tax fraud conviction]she served 21 months of a four-year prison sentenceor she was a pioneer who broke barriers by rising to the top of the then male-dominated real estate industryor both.
Harry Helmsley was originally buried in a family mausoleum in WoodlawnCemetery in the Bronx. But three years ago a public mausoleum went up, blocking his view. An irate Helmsley, who was already a millionaire when she married her husband, sued the cemetery, but ultimately moved Harrys and their son, Jay Panzirers remains to Sleepy Hollow in 2005.
Photo courtesy of [ckirkman on Flickr]