In Greenwich, Conn., there sits an estate with an 1,800-foot driveway, 15,000 square feet of living space, 50 acres of waterfront land and a $190 million price tag. When it hit the market in May, it was proclaimed the most expensive home ever formally listed in the country, and an extraordinary monument to magnitude.

But that was just the half of it.

Copper Beech Farm, as the estate is called, also carries more than $120 million in debt, surely making it one of the most heavily mortgaged homes in American history as well. In recent years, it has been yoked, through its loans and through its owner, to a tale of the American West; of forestland, big plans, a scarcity of water and a devastating infestation of spruce budworm, which are, essentially, caterpillars.

Copper Beech Farm was built in 1898 and was owned for much of the 20th century by the Lauder Greenway family; George Lauder helped start a steel company in the late 19th century with his cousin, Andrew Carnegie. That company later became U.S. Steel.

In 1982, the estate was sold to the current owners, John M. Rudey, a timber magnate, and his wife, Laurie Rudey, for $7.55 million. They have not been in the local news much since, though in 2003 an article from The Associated Press reported that Mr. Rudey had been charged with providing alcohol to minors after two Harvard rugby players who had been attending a party at his house were caught running naked in a public park. One of Mr. Rudey’s children was a member of the team. (Records do not reveal how the case turned out.)