As his European cable empire grows, Malone is building a trans-Atlantic property portfolio. In November, he spent some 8 million euros on Humewood, a 15-bedroom granite mansion built in 1870 on 427 acres of woods, meadows, and lakes. In August, Malone added the 195-room Trinity Capital Hotel in Dublin to the mix for about 35 million euros, beating out five other bidders.
Those properties join homes Malone owns in Colorado, Maine, Florida, and the Bahamas, where he’s renovating an island resort at Sampson Cay, said close friend David Rapley, a Denver-area engineer who serves on the boards of three Malone companies.
Rapley met Malone 30 years ago after his wife, Sandra, took an aerobics class with Leslie Malone. Several years later, on a trip to the Malones’ summer home in Maine, he was taken aback as he learned more about his unassuming host.
“In my mind I pictured a log cabin up in the woods like we have here in Colorado,” Rapley said over drinks near Liberty’s headquarters. “We came around the corner and here is this huge white, gleaming mansion with out-buildings, a big barn and acres of manicured land leading down to the water. I got out and asked Sandra, ‘What did you say John does?’”
On the way back to Denver, Rapley saw Malone’s face on the cover of a magazine. “I went to Sandra and said ‘I thought you said John had something to do with cable TV,’” he recalled. “I turned the magazine around and said, ‘He is cable TV.’”