The last time Blouin spoke with Vanity Fair for this story, she wanted to underscore points she’d emailed, texted, and called about. “I don’t pay things. When you are a chairman and CEO of a global company, you don’t pay things,” she said via Zoom. And then, a few breaths later, “I paid everyone, they stole the money on the other side.”
Some ex-staff interviewed by VF also believe there were some irregularities, but not on the scale that Blouin alleges. Others say their work practices were standard. Blouin claims the Manhattan district attorney opened an investigation; the DA declined to comment.
As for the house, “she has seller’s remorse,” said John Allerding, a lawyer for Bay Point Advisors, Blouin’s last lender. If there had been a minimum reserve bid, “we would have had no bidders and we would be in the same position as we were when we got involved in September 2022: two properties that nobody wanted, generating expenses.”
The Department of Justice has an ongoing investigation involving federal withholdings from Blouin’s employees’ paychecks that were never sent to the government. Blouin has lodged her own complaint against the government. When reached by VF, an IRS investigator and the IRS spokesperson declined to comment. From Europe, Blouin tells VF the company allocated money to pay the withholding but that it never made it to the federal government. She says she had nothing to do with any “fraud” because she didn’t run her company, and that she welcomes the IRS investigation. “The truth will finally come out,” she says.
“The Big Apple ate me,” Blouin says in another call, with a laugh. “I wasn’t lucky in New York.”
The house on Gin Lane is far from Dorval, the Montreal suburb where Blouin grew up in comfort, one of six children. Her parents ran an insurance brokerage. She went to private schools and sailed competitively. According to the Toronto Star, she traces her heritage on her mother’s side to Jacques Viger, the first mayor of Montreal, elected in 1833. Blouin attended McGill University but never graduated. She annulled her first marriage, to David Stewart, an RJR-Macdonald tobacco heir. In 1987, Blouin married MacBain. A Rhodes scholar and son of a Liberal member of parliament, MacBain was a rising star at Power Corporation, which was owned by the family of Blouin’s brother-in-law, Paul Desmarais Jr., who came from one of Canada’s wealthiest families. As the MacBains’ business grew, the couple moved to Europe and summered at La Dune, where they enjoyed family life with their three children and threw lavish parties. But MacBain did not share Blouin’s social ambitions, some say, and the couple grew apart.
Two years after buying La Dune, in 2000, the marriage was over but the parties continued. Calvin Klein, Ross Bleckner, and Bianca Jagger were among the many guests. Blouin sold her share of the business to her ex-husband for a reported $200 million. The men she dated during this new chapter—including Simon de Pury, the “Mick Jagger of auctioneers,” and Prince Andrew—were also drawn to La Dune.
For many years, La Dune was Blouin’s calling card, luring stars and their hangers-on through the oceanfront doors. But over time, it became an albatross. By 2018, a $26 million mortgage required additional lenders. In 2023, the compound was both in bankruptcy protection and on the market for an astonishing $150 million. It was also for rent for millions of dollars. “If she could have gotten a renter at $2 million or $3 million for the summer, which was possible, she would have been able to service the loan,” a broker who once worked with Blouin told VF.
Those who walked through the compound during its final months on the market told VF that it had great bones, but there was something tragic about it. One banker, who attended a lunch prepared by Blouin’s private chef on a terrace overlooking the ocean last summer, ultimately turned down her refinancing request.
“When people live above their means against assets they have or inherited in order to tread water, it typically doesn’t end well. Nobody thought it was worth $150 million. It felt like Grey Gardens, with faded Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape photographs on the wall,” he says. Such grand old houses, he notes, “get really beaten down by the ocean.”
Ultimately, on a cold winter night in January this year, Blouin lost La Dune in a live foreclosure auction that lasted a little longer than five hours, at Sotheby’s New York offices on the Upper East Side. The sale was the first time Sotheby’s auctioned real estate live alongside art, in a collection titled “Visions of America.”
“This should be a series on Netflix,” a would-be buyer whispered, referring to all the drama.
“I’m surprised she kept the house as long as she did,” a former La Dune worker had told me. “John, her ex-husband, was easy to deal with, but she didn’t spend enough on the home’s upkeep. She reminded me of Nick Nolte in Down and Out in Beverly Hills.”
The compound ultimately sold for $88.48 million, including broker commissions. It sounds like a lot, but the amount was far less than the debt on the property, according to Bay Point Advisors. Blouin voiced her objections to the sale, without legal representation, in a Central Islip bankruptcy court in February. She is currently contesting how funds from La Dune’s sale should be allocated. Court-ordered mediation with Bay Point is set for this summer. If unsuccessful, both sides will be back in court in late July, after this story is published. She also disputes whether she owes Bay Point. Blouin has long since shut down her art publishing empire, although she says she is building an online archive. She has also sold much of her trophy real estate, including a penthouse duplex at 165 Charles Street designed by her friend, Richard Meier.
Two women who worked for Blouin and sued Louise Blouin Media Inc. and its owner, Louise Blouin, for money owed say they are still waiting to be paid in full, despite a settlement agreement. Nevertheless, Blouin’s fighting spirit—and apparently her lifestyle—remains.