user: Input: San Diego's Most Expensive Home
For $41 million, you would think you could get a house with an electronic front gate that’s easy to operate. Eventually, after three tries, David Dunn David Dunn figures out the contraption, and the wide gates slowly swing open to his La Jolla estate, revealing a curved driveway lined with old cobblestones shipped out from Brooklyn. This is the first introduction to Dunn’s nearly six-acre estate that–if it goes for the asking price–would be the most expensive house ever sold in the still-frothy San Diego market. It also qualifies for a place on Forbes’ list of The Most Expensive Homes In America.

What do you get for $41 million besides a complicated gate? Start with the land, a peninsula-like outcropping with unobstructed views north up to Dana Point, south to downtown La Jolla and as far west over the Pacific Ocean as you can see. Below is a secluded beach, populated mostly by surfers one recent day. “Ah, to be young again,” sighs Dunn, 72, whose Idanta Partners has overseen venture capital investments on behalf of the Bass brothers since he formed the firm in 1971.

Unlike the venture capitalists reeling from the tech wreck, Dunn has come out relatively unscathed. So instead of selling the house to make ends meet, he’s simply moving to smaller digs. At 17,000 square feet, the Italianate-styled house, named Villa di Capri, is too big for just Dunn and his wife, who spend most of their time in an alcove connected to the kitchen. “It’s a little bit much for me,” he admits.

The rest of the house serves as a sort of gallery for Dunn’s eclectic taste in art, and odds and ends picked up from other homes. At the high end is his collection of five Rodin bronzes cast from the artist’s “Burghers of Calais” sculpture, which adorn the rarely used grand entrance hall. At the other end of the scale is some grillwork outside the kitchen lifted from the ornate mansion featured in the old Beverly Hillbillies show. If you like giant, old sooty fountains lifted and hauled in pieces from the estate of an old Pittsburgh steel magnate, Dunn has one of those, too, outside on the pool deck.

The fountain and most of the other antiquities were acquired by Dunn’s son, Steven, 45, who helped oversee the design and construction of the house. Dunn bought the property for $4 million in 1989 from the federal government as part of the savings and loan fiasco. There was an existing, 20,000-square-foot monstrosity of a house that had all the charm of a motel, so Dunn bulldozed everything except for the tennis court and began plans to build a more modest 6,000-square-foot place. But when son Steve told him that the next buyer would just raze that, too, Dunn went large and built six bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a five-car garage, an elevator, 25,000 square feet of French limestone, and a full-sized, bookshelf-lined office for the time when he expected to retire in the house.

Still going strong at Idanta and managing his stakes in seven companies, including Zip-drive maker Iomega , Dunn has never used the office much. But with drop-dead views of the cliffs of La Jolla and the Pacific, he would have had a hard time concentrating there anyway.

The Most Expensive Homes In America 10.10.02 The economy is struggling yet the average home price on our list is up. The catch is that no one’s buying.

Comments are turned off for this post.
What was this article about?
++++++++++
It's about: Living in a $41 million house isn't for everyone--even if, like venture capitalist David Dunn, you actually live there.


Input: What It’s Like to Make Music With David Lynch
Chrysta Bell simply clicked with David Lynch when they met nearly two decades ago. “We actually established our ritual, or method of collaboration, the very first day that we met,” she says. “We made a song the day that we met.” Lynch, the filmmaker known for creating the surrealistic dream worlds of “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” […]
What was this article about?
++++++++++
It's about: Singer Chrysta Bell sheds light on her 17-year collaboration with the artist and filmmaker.


Input: Dental Frustration (1 Letter)
Re âA Gap in the Affordable Care Actâ (Dec. 17): Catherine Saint Louis nicely captures an issue that is frustrating the dental industry right now owing to the lack of any mandate for pediatric dental care and the failure of the I.R.S. to include stand-alone dental premiums when calculating premium subsidies.

When pediatric dental is embedded in many of the medical policies sold in health exchanges across the country (as well as outside of exchanges in the small-group and individual marketplace), such policies often require a combined medical-dental deductible of $2,000 or more before any dental coverage is actually offered. Thatâs illusory dental âcoverage.â
What was this article about?
++++++++++
It's about:

assistant: A letter to the Editor.