King of Jordan eyes Kiawah estate -- fact or fiction?

Take the priciest house in South Carolina, add some Arab royalty to the mix and stand clear as the rumor mill starts churning. If it's spring, it must be scuttlebutt season in the Charleston home-selling business. The latest bit of gossip to set tongues wagging was that King Abdullah II of Jordan has been house-hunting in the Lowcountry. Specifically, his royal majesty was said to have his eye on a palatial 13,000-square-foot Kiawah Island spread on a 3.4-acre lot overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The princely asking price: $29 million. Of all the rumors he's heard about would-be buyers, Don Rutledge of Kiawah Island Real Estate said he wishes this one was true. "That tops everything," chuckled Rutledge, who is the listing agent on the Flyway Drive home. King Abdullah's representatives did not respond this week to an e-mail inquiry seeking comment. But the king isn't the first icon whose name has local real estate circles abuzz. One of the best-known examples surfaced in the early 1990s, when word hit the street that television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, after making at least two visits to Charleston, was buying the Pineapple Gates house at 14 Legare St. It never happened. While difficult, if not impossible, to trace the source of such speculation, Rutledge has heard enough of it while selling high-dollar homes on Kiawah that he has developed what could be a solid theory. "As you know, we get a lot of celebrities and big-time people out here," he said, pointing to retired basketball superstar Michael Jordan as a prime example. Inevitably, Rutledge said, well-known high-rollers are spotted out in public, "and you'll hear that they bought a place here just because they visited." That might explain why King Abdullah's name has been bandied about. Last month, the king flew to the United States for several days to meet with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials.

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