NAMES IN THE NEWS : Bass Buys, Cuts, Donates House

Super-rich investor Sid Bass found a creative way to deal with an unwanted mansion next door: buy it, cut it into pieces and reassemble it somewhere else.

Bass and his wife, Mercedes, plan to move their former neighbors’ 6,600-square-foot house to the grounds of the Lena Pope Home, a facility for abused, neglected and emotionally disturbed children.

Officials say the donated four-bedroom French-style house will be used as a residence for eight girls and a married couple called family teachers.

The house is the former residence of the Mac Churchill family, who moved after selling the property to the Basses about three months ago.

“Thank goodness the Basses are doing this,” Churchill said. “Nobody else could have thought of doing it.”

Bass, whose fortune is estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars, is remodeling his own red-brick colonial house.