Robert Herjavec, the nice guy on Dragons' Den, greets visitors to his Bridle Path mansion with a practised handshake and hangs up coats in a long and oddly empty closet beside the grand main entrance.
The Herjavec home is undeniably sprawling. The main entrance opens onto a rotunda with marble floors and a fireplace. To the left, past the library, is a vast indoor pool with a life-size statue of a goddess, a fireplace and doors that open onto a patio in summer. Faux Grecian columns abound.
The house seems curiously bare for a home that has been occupied by a family of five for 10 years.
The pool bar is bereft of liquor or glasses. The sofas in the room where Herjavec's father, wife and youngest daughter play Monopoly for the benefit of a CBC crew filming a brief documentary of Robert's life look like matching pieces from Leon's.
Upstairs in the bedroom area, packing boxes with clothes pouring out of them lean perilously up against walls.
A cardboard packing wardrobe looms behind the couch in the television room. The downstairs ballroom is cavernous.
Herjavec blames Bono for all the packing boxes. He says he has rented his High Point Rd. house to celebrities in the summer when he and his family go to Florida. In September, Bono rented the house for a week while performing in Toronto. The Herjavecs stayed at their Caledon country property.
"They packed everything in boxes. Not like Travolta the summer before. They packed everything, when I say to you every single thing, every tie, all personal pictures, everything," says Herjavec.
It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for one week.
"Well yeah, it's Bono, absolutely."
Herjavec says his wife, Diane Plese, wanted to unpack herself. She wanted to go through their belongings, prune things down, and redecorate. She's still not done.
It was this house that started Robert Herjavec on the road to minor celebrity. Before he bought it, he was just another unknown millionaire businessman living with his family in Mississauga.
Saying he paid $10 million cash for the mansion is what got a National Post writer up there for a tour in August 2000. At that price, it was one of the most expensive homes ever sold in Canada at the time. Herjavec, the Post story said, had a personal net worth of $100 million, a portion of which came from the sale of his company, Brak Systems, to AT&T Canada that March.
Numerous later stories refer to the fact that Herjavec earned $100 million for the sale of Brak alone. It's an error he doesn't correct, and in fact repeats, saying he sold Brak for "a reported $100 million." Which is technically correct. It has been reported that way.
"Is $100 million accurate?" he's asked. "It's a long time ago. I don't want to comment on it."
According to AT&T Canada's annual report for 2000, Brak Systems was acquired for $30.2 million cash that year. Toronto property records show Herjavec paid $7.5 million for his mansion.
Herjavec is sticking with $10 million. His lengthy explanation boils down to this: Someone else had walked away from a $2.5 million deposit on the house, and when Herjavec was told the house was $10 million, he told the seller: "You have a $2.5 million deposit from someone who's not going to close, so I'll give you $7.5 million."
He feels he paid too much. He had been living in California before the dot-com bubble burst. Ordinary homes in Silicon Valley were going for $25 million. The High Point Rd. mansion seemed like a steal by comparison. Herjavec called his agent the day after he bought it.
"I said to her, `You screwed me over, you made me overpay for that house.' I'm nuts, nobody is ever going to pay that kind of money again for this house. I will never (he pounds his fist on his desk) get my money out of this house."
In 2000, homes on High Point Rd. and The Bridle Path were selling from just under $2 million to $5 million for a house and lot far larger than Herjavec's. Later that year, a house on The Bridle Path also sold for $7.5 million.
"The house is a nightmare to keep up. We're constantly having this argument, should we go, should we stay, what should we do?" Herjavec says. For now, he and his wife are hanging on. They have two daughters. Next year their son will graduate from high school.
Herjavec, 47, has brilliant blue eyes and expressive features that seem particularly adept at telegraphing sympathy, one of the reasons that Dragons' Den producer Tracie Tighe was drawn to him.
Another producer at CBC had seen a news story about Herjavec and his wife throwing a charity ball at their mansion for the Princess Margaret Foundation. Herjavec's immigrant-makes-good story is irresistible.
"All of our dragons were self-made," says Tighe. "And he's got those blue eyes. He has a very striking face. He just looks great for television, too. Everyone remarks on Robert's eyes. He's expressive. He's a good performer."
Herjavec's fingernails are bitten to the quick.
He still chokes up when he tells the story of how, when he was 8 years old, his family arrived in Canada from Croatia to escape communism with just $20.
His dad got a job in a Mississauga factory, making $76 a week. Herjavec remembers the uproar in the household when his mom was persuaded to buy a $500 vacuum cleaner from a travelling salesman. Seven weeks' salary. On a vacuum cleaner.
Herjavec swore his family would never be taken advantage of again. He went on to pursue wealth with a single-mindedness that made him rich beyond his childhood dreams, working for free when he had little to offer besides youthful enthusiasm and energy.
Herjavec has said that after selling Brak, he stayed on at AT&T as vice-president of security services, and later, was worldwide VP of sales for publicly held RAMP Networks when it was sold to Nokia for $225 million. Herjavec acknowledges he got nothing close to $225 million. He doesn't reveal how much, if anything, he made on that sale.
In 2003 he launched The Herjavec Group (THG), an Internet security company that he says had $35.6 million in revenues in 2009 and employed 56. His luxury car collection is leased by THG, including two Lamborghinis, a Hummer and a Porsche.
These days, he's focusing on plumping up his public image. Dragons' Den is a hit for CBC, but the future of Shark Tank, which airs in the more lucrative American market, is not assured. Herjavec has a ghostwritten business book coming out in September, called Driven. He recently launched a new personal website. The homepage features a picture of him that makes him look like a religious icon.
"I am much more of a builder than a pure hands-off investor," he replies via email when asked how many contestants he's invested in on Dragons' Den and how those deals have worked out.
"In the few cases from the show where the investment has worked out, I try to get involved and mentor as much as possible. Grease Monkey (as an example) is experiencing phenomenal growth since airing and we try and have conference calls at least every two weeks. Very tough to make the time but often, these small business (sic) need advice much more than they need the money."
The website for Shark Tank says Herjavec owns a private island, a fact that has been repeated in the press. It has also been reported that he owns property on Fisher Island near Miami, one of the most exclusive and wealthy enclaves in the U.S. Herjavec does not own an island. Nor is he on title for any property in Florida, according to property records from Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County.
"My personal assets – and the structure of them is set up for my benefit – including confidentiality, liability, and tax planning," Herjavec wrote in response to questions about whether he owns any property in Florida.
The jet he is shown climbing into at the beginning of each episode of Dragons' Den is not his. He owns a share in the jet. He says it's for business. The family also uses it to fly to Mont Tremblant to ski.
"The lease is coming up at the end of April. I told them, `I'm not keeping it, it's crazy expensive,'" he says. Now he's not so sure. He's worried about the safety of air travel.
On the day the Star visits, Herjavec's father is at the High Point Rd. mansion. He's a charming and roguish former mechanic in his 70s who effortlessly steals the spotlight from his son. Vladimir talks about how much he hated living under Communist rule in Tito's Yugoslavia, and how he was repeatedly jailed for speaking out against it.
Vladimir's father died when he was three, leaving a family of 10 children. "I was hungrier than a pig," says Vladimir. "When I came to Canada, I couldn't eat enough bread." Now he lives in Mississauga and travels often to Croatia. He still cannot believe his son's success.
"When I saw for the first time this room," he says of the ballroom, "I was shocked that something like this exists and my son made it."
Herjavec's mother died three years ago, aged 66.
In the brief biography of Herjavec that will air on Dragons' Den March 17, he visits his uncle in Croatia, who apparently still lives in the humble home Herjavec grew up in, with a barn out back for pigs. He gives his uncle a copy of the Dragons' Den to play. His uncle seems incredulous.
"There is a part of the world that doesn't know me – hard to believe, Caprice, isn't it?" Robert says to his daughter.
With files from Star library staff
BIOGRAPHY
Age: 47
Dragon personality: Nice, sympathetic.
Business holdings: Founder of The Herjavec Group, which sells network security products and services. Revenues in 2009 were $35.6 million.
Staff: 56.
Personal: Married to Diane Plese, three children.
Did you know? Herjavec's purchase of a Bridle Path mansion catapulted him into headlines in 2000.
Posts
