Lavin's other home of horrors
Rosalind Lavin's four-acre Villanova estate was notorious on the Main Line even before Lavin lived there.
It was the site of a triple murder.
In July 1982, aviation pioneer Courtlandt Gross was shot to death during a robbery at the Arrowmink Road mansion, along with his wife, housekeeper and family dog.
The Boston-born and Harvard-educated Gross, 77, was co-founder and chairman of Lockheed Corp. His wife, Alexandra, 68, was a great-granddaughter of banker Anthony J. Drexel, for whom Drexel University is named.
A Pottstown man named Roger Buehl was convicted in 1983 of the murders and sentenced to death, later reduced on appeal to three life terms. Buehl's lawyer was A. Charles Peruto Jr.
According to a longtime Lavin acquaintance - who spoke on condition of anonymity - the Lavins got a great deal on the house because it was cursed by the murders. Most potential buyers recoiled at the notion of living there.
Not the Lavins.
Rosalind and Robert, who has since died, bought it for $590,000 in 1984. There's a $2.1 million mortgage on the property and it's worth multiples of that. *
- Jill Porter
