Sara Lin:

Pleasant Rowland, the founder of doll company American Girl who spent six years and millions of dollars restoring much of Aurora, N.Y., has put both of her houses there on the market.
From 2001 to 2006, Ms. Rowland renovated town buildings owned by Wells College, her alma mater. Some townspeople criticized the renovations as too extensive. “I just simply saved a town that was crumbling,” Ms. Rowland says now. “My work there is completed.” She says the dispute isn’t her reason for leaving town.
One of the houses in Aurora, which is 46 miles southwest of Syracuse, is a 10,000-square-foot Queen Anne lakefront mansion built about 1902 with six bedrooms. It could use some interior renovation, Ms. Rowland says, and comes with 200 feet of frontage on Cayuga Lake, a dock and a boathouse. The two-acre property is listed for $2.2 million. The other house, an 1830 Federal-style home of 4,000 square feet with three bedrooms, is restored, Ms. Rowland says. The four-acre property is listed for $2 million.
In 1985, Ms. Rowland founded American Girl, which Mattel bought for $700 million in 1998. These homes represent the last of Ms. Rowland’s recent ties to Aurora. Last week, she sold Aurora-based MacKenzie-Childs, a decorative-tableware and home-furnishings company. She’s based in Madison, Wis. Paddington Zwigard of Brown Harris Stevens has both home listings.

It must be noted that former Mattel CEO Jill Barad signed the $700M check.