LAKE SAINT LOUIS • Even in a time when plenty of Americans can trace their financial ruin to spending too much on their homes, the story of a massive and unfinished house at 5 Lakeview Court stands alone.

Darain Atkinson's mansion — an almost unfathomable money pit — didn't simply bring down the man. He directed his company, Wentzville-based US Fidelis, to pay $26.7 million of the construction costs. Those expenditures, along with other money pulled out of the company, helped bankrupt the firm and put more than 1,000 people out of work.

More than that, the excesses attracted the attention of consumer advocates, regulators and journalists. Years of US Fidelis operating below the radar suddenly ended, investigations were begun, civil suits were filed and federal authorities began an ongoing inquiry into possible criminal wrongdoing.

The St. Louis Better Business Bureau led a campaign against US Fidelis, the nation's biggest seller of extended auto-service contracts, and several other service-contract sellers based in the area. Michelle Corey, the group's president and chief executive, said Atkinson's mansion attracted national media attention not just because it made good video. It showed what was being done with "millions of dollars stolen from consumers," she said.

"Consumers were deceived into believing they were purchasing a vehicle protection service which would provide them with peace of mind," Corey said. "Instead, they were unknowingly building him a mansion."

This week, the US Fidelis bankruptcy estate opened the house to the news media. The motivation was simple: interested buyers have until Dec. 6 to top a $4.75 million bid on the house, and any buzz in the press might drive up the price.

Darain Atkinson and his wife, Mia, surrendered the mansion, and virtually their entire fortune, to settle a suit filed by US Fidelis against Atkinson and his brother, Cory. The brothers each own a 50 percent stake in the company, but US Fidelis has been run by an independent management team since it filed for bankruptcy on March 1.

Eight weeks after taking over, the management team accused the brothers of plundering more than $101 million from the company in an effort to keep money from US Fidelis creditors.

(The company also spent about $10 million on Cory Atkinson's Wentzville mansion, as well as several vacation homes and other houses for the brothers' relatives. Cory Atkinson and his wife, Heather, also turned over their properties and wealth as part of the settlement. )

Now, US Fidelis is trying to sell the mansion quickly, for as much as it can fetch. One thing is nearly certain: No buyer will offer anything close to the construction costs. The starting bid isn't even one-fifth that much.

According to US Fidelis records, it paid $26,696,319.12 for construction and land-acquisition costs associated with the mansion. That sum doesn't include about $1.7 million still owed to contractors; any construction-related payments made directly by Darain Atkinson, which isn't publicly known; or what any buyer would assume to finish a half-built indoor pool and basketball court.

Because of its unfinished state, there's some disagreement about the house's size. St. Charles County Assessor Scott Shipman said the county's figure is 20,752-square feet, but that doesn't include a very large, finished lower level. An online real-estate listing set the size of the house as 32,767 square feet.

TWO-STORY CLOSET

The suburban lane that leads to the mansion is lined with tidy yards and ranch houses, most of them built in the 1970s. If you're trying to find one of the region's most grandiose homes, you'll think you've taken a wrong turn.

Until you reach the iron gate blocking the uninvited. From there, it's about 400 feet to the house's main entrance. The approach, laid entirely in ornamental pavers, gives visitors the chance to leave suburbia behind and enter a fantasy amalgam of French chateau, English manor, day spa and bowling alley.

There's no reason for parked vehicles to obstruct the view. Drivers headed toward the house can turn into an auto courtyard, a medieval-looking plaza surrounded on two sides by a seven-car garage.

Once at the front door, visitors might notice the security camera pointed at them. They won't likely detect most of the 25 or so other cameras in and around the house, said a former property manager for Atkinson who now works for the bankruptcy estate.

The cameras were intended to track visitors as they moved through the property, and the footage could be watched live from most of the televisions in the house.

The cameras weren't the only security feature. In an April 2009 interview, Atkinson told the Post-Dispatch that he feared for his family's safety. The house clearly was built with that in mind.

In addition to two apartments, the mansion boasts seven bedrooms. Two were designed for children, and both have secret entrances to a hidden chamber. In one room, a false closet wall is a door; in the other, a bookshelf gives way when a fake children's book is tugged in just the right way.

Inside the hidden room, a ladder leads to one of the house's two safe rooms, where the Atkinson family could hide from intruders. At least four other secret doors are disguised as cabinets, library shelves and a wall inside a roomy shoe closet big enough to hold several dozen pairs.

With its tons of decorative marble, its enormous chandeliers and the wood-paneled and leather-floored library, the mansion sometimes has the feel of an old-world, aristocratic palace, or at least a pastiche of one.

Even the Atkinson coat of arms, a shield emblazoned with a two-headed eagle, is carved into the dining room's Gothic Revival mantle.

For Atkinson — a convicted thief, burglar, check-forger and counterfeiter from Garden City, Kan. — the mansion must have been a daily reminder that his past was behind him. He had arrived.

But for all the stuffiness of the mansion's formal rooms, Atkinson and his family had plenty of places to unwind. And not just in the contemplative way one might enjoy in what was dubbed "the meditation room" or in the observation tower high above the house.

The basement boasts a large bar, bowling alley, billiards room, art studio, exercise room and guitar room. Out back, the pool overlooks Lake Saint Louis, and the kids could play on a trampoline and a fort. The master bath connected to a beauty salon. Nearby, Mia Atkinson stored her wardrobe in a two-story walk-in closet.

Work on the mansion ended abruptly after US Fidelis stopped paying construction bills in September 2009. The Atkinsons had a bigger problem: The public had turned on the company.

Service-contract cancellations started outpacing new sales, and the company quickly was falling deeply into debt to Mepco Finance Corp., the Chicago company that financed consumers' purchases. In October of that year, Atkinson gave Mepco a second mortgage on US Fidelis' Wentzville headquarters.

It wasn't enough, and mass layoffs followed. Mepco called in the debt and, on Dec. 29, US Fidelis announced that it would stop selling service contracts.

According to lawyers involved in the case, Atkinson retreated to his unfinished pleasure palace until the day would come when he would be forced to move out.

That day came last week. Lawyers representing the Atkinson brothers would not say where they are now living.