Controversy dogs owner at home, work

His house irked neighbors; the Justice Department sued over a Utah plant.
& lt;a href=mailto:vinarsky@vindy.com & gt;By CYNTHIA VINARSKY & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
His business holdings are worth more than $2 billion, but WCI Steel owner Ira Rennert might be best known for building a mansion so massive that it stirred up a neighborhood protest in the Hamptons, New York's exclusive Long Island beach community.
Rennert, 69, started building the 42,000-square-foot, $100 million home in the late 1990s, and it is nearly complete, according to his company's Web site, www.rencogroup.net. Renco Group is the holding company for Rennert's businesses.
The neighborhood dispute surrounding the project was chronicled in New York newspapers and magazines like Vanity Fair and Forbes.
Members of the Sagaponack Homeowners Association, Rennert's wealthy neighbors, filed a complaint with the Town of Southampton Zoning Appeals Board demanding that Rennert's building permits be withdrawn because of the project's size.
The zoning panel eventually voted down the request, but a few months later, it changed the town zoning code to limit single-family houses to 20,000 square feet.
'Largest in world'
New Yorker magazine reported Rennert's mansion is about three times larger than most other homes in the area, and Forbes.com calls it "the largest private house in the world."
Yahoo.com says the multimillionaire's residence in construction is "double the size of the White House" and includes 29 bedrooms, 42 bathrooms, a 100-car garage and an English pub.
Rennert declined a telephone interview, but his company Web site says the home is called Fairfield and his family expects to move in next year.
The Renco site mentions a dune restoration project which was a part of the landscaping for the home and describes it as "one of the most pastoral properties, in keeping with the environment of Sagaponack."
Business ventures
Rennert's business ventures have sometimes been dogged with controversy.
He and Renco are named in a lawsuit filed by the U. S. Dept. of Justice, alleging his Magnesium Corp. of America was illegally generating, storing and disposing of hazardous wastes at its plant at the edge of the Great Salt Lake. The suit is pending.
Defends its record
The company defends its environmental record, however. "Addressing environmental issues has been a corporate objective for The Renco Group, and Mr. Rennert ... has long supported ... extensive investments in environmental improvements," Renco's Web site says.
WCI, the only surviving Mahoning Valley mill still making steel from raw materials, was one of Renco's first acquisitions. Rennert bought the mill from LTV Steel for $147 million in 1988 and renamed it WCI Steel in 1991.
In all, Renco says its companies have sales of $2 billion a year, employ more than 10,000 people and have assets worth more than $2.4 billion.
& lt;a href=mailto:vinarsky@vindy.com & gt;vinarsky@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;