Your Survival Guy enjoyed this story in the WSJ: “The Koch Brothers Are Sitting on a Real Estate Empire Worth Hundreds of Millions” Katherine Clarke writes (abridged):
Billionaire brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch became known for their financial support of conservative and arts causes. But they, and their two brothers, Bill and Frederick, quietly built another legacy: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of high-end real estate.
The four brothers have amassed some of the world’s most spectacular private homes, including a large waterfront compound on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod once owned by Bunny Mellon, sprawling Palm Beach estates, a replica of an old Western town in Colorado and an Austrian castle once owned by Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
The estates are a far cry from the roughly 160-acre property on the outskirts of Wichita, Kan., where the brothers grew up. They spent their summers in bunkhouses while working on cattle ranches owned by their father.
Father Fred Koch founded the crude-oil-gathering business that grew into Koch Industries, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate whose subsidiaries include interests in manufacturing, software and technology.
Frederick and Bill sold their interests in the company in 1983, while Charles and David remained at the helm. A subsequent legal battle between the brothers over the value of Frederick and Bill’s shares was resolved. Charles is still chairman and chief executive of the firm.
Charles and David, who died last year at 79, later attracted attention with their efforts to help finance the tea-party movement and forward a conservative agenda geared toward smaller government and loosening regulation.
Read on for a closer look at the brothers’ most notable holdings, as determined through public records, the brothers’ spokespeople, local real-estate agents and from several books, including Daniel Schulman’s 2014 “Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty.”
You can learn a thing or two from the wealthy about securing your family’s freedom. Read more from Clarke here.
