Icahn owner of Vera Coking's A.C. house

ATLANTIC CITY - Vera Coking famously refused to sell to Donald Trump. But in the end, she sold to Carl Icahn.

Property records in Atlantic County show that Coking's famous but now-vacant white house, in the shadow of the famous but now-shuttered Trump Plaza, is now owned by IEH Enterprises - Icahn.

The house at 127 S. Columbia Place was sold at auction in August for $583,000. At the time, Atlantic City lawyer Pat Agnellini said he was the bidder on site - and on the phone - who walked away with the winning bid.

Agnellini declined to say at the time whom he represented other than himself, or what the plans were for the property. He did make it clear he was not representing Donald Trump, who claimed to have offered Coking millions decades ago.

Coking, who purchased the house for $20,000 in 1961, became a folk hero after resisting Trump, who wanted her house for a limousine staging area for the Trump Plaza.

She also stood firm while Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione built an iron structure literally up and over her house. Perhaps most significant was that Coking successfully resisted state efforts to take the property by eminent domain.

The winning bid came after about an hour of action in the parking lot separating Trump Plaza from Coking's 29-room home.

Property records online show the transfer Sept. 9 from the Coking family to IEH Investments. IEH stands for Icahn Enterprises Holdings L.P., based in New York. The Icahn connection was first reported by the Atlantic City Press.

A message left for Icahn in New York was not returned.

Plans for the shuttered Trump Plaza on the Boardwalk remain uncertain. Icahn controls the debt on the property, which is owned by the bankrupt Trump Entertainment Resorts. The house has been vacant for years. Coking is in her early 90s and lives in a retirement home in California.

On Tuesday, the house and property were deserted, most of its windows broken, the siding along the wall facing Trump Plaza missing. A marked security vehicle sat parked across the street near Trump Plaza with nobody in it. A "God Bless America" sticker was visible in a front window of the house.

Plans floated by the state and Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian call for opening up the stretch of Mississippi Avenue from the Walk outlets to the Boardwalk for an entertainment and restaurant district. That would require demolishing Trump Plaza and the Coking house.