Nation: Wraith and Home

When Clarence Eckert returned to the U.S. after 31 years as a civil engineer in Saudi Arabia, he and his family settled into an eight-room, custom-built house jutting over a pond in Ossining, N.Y. Within a year he was ready to leave. “New York is awful,” said Eckert, 52. “I’ve moved from one kind of desert to another.”

Eckert put his house on the market and prepared to move to Washington, D.C. But no one was buying. Finally he hit upon an added attraction: with the house a buyer would get a 1953 Silver Wraith Rolls-Royce once owned by a Saudi Arabian prince. Total price: $92,500. At week’s end, there were still no takers.