In the market for a 20,000-square-foot house on 10 acres?
It has tennis and racquetball courts, an indoor swimming pool and all the other posh amenities you would expect to find in a home that's only slightly smaller than the Delta Center.If so, contact Howard Ruff in Mapleton, Utah County. His estate is up for sale.
After 11 years in Utah, Ruff - author, lecturer, self-styled economist and one of the state's best known and most controversial residents - is "going home," in his words, to the Bay Area of northern California.
"It was a heart-wrenching decision because I love my home and my Utah Jazz season tickets, but now I've made a value gut-check and it says `move,' " Ruff told subscribers to his The Ruff Times investment newsletter this week.
"If anybody asks you why Howard Ruff moved to California, just tell them, `He's going home,' " Ruff added. "He wanted his business and his family in the same place."
Ruff, his wife, Kay, and their large family moved to Mapleton on July 4, 1980. Their married children had settled in Utah and, while attending Brigham Young University, Ruff said he "fell in love with the Utah Valley."
Now, he said, only four people are left in the Mapleton household: He and his wife and daughters Megan, 15, and Terri Lynn, 8. "It's absurd for four people to occupy 20,000 square feet," Ruff said.
After the move to Utah, The Ruff Times, the core of his many enterprises, remained in Pleasanton, Calif., southeast of San Francisco, along with Target Inc., his publishing company.
In Utah, he launched a coin company, the Jefferson Institute, and Liberty Mint while putting out the monthly newsletter via fax machine and computer modem. The coin company was sold years ago, the Jefferson Institute was sold last year and Liberty Mint "runs itself," Ruff said.
"Now, so many things have changed that it makes little sense for what's left of the Ruffs at home to stay in Utah," he said. "Sometime in the next few months, we'll be selling our home and moving back to California, just a few miles from where Kay and I both grew up, near where some of our family now lives."
He said The Ruff Times and his new venture, The MainStreet Alliance, a discount buying service, "will be my full-time business for the rest of my life." Ruff has told subscribers in earlier issues that he is undergoing treatment for cancer.
While getting Main Street up and going, Ruff said he has been spending three to four days a week in California.
"I despise the lonely nights in the Pleasanton condo . . . I now despise airplanes, airports, car rental counters and I'm even feeling belligerent about flight attendants . . . now I'll get home at nights."