DIXON – Rita Crundwell spared no expense when she built and furnished her sprawling home with custom touches like a chandelier made of old revolvers and spurs, an in-ground pool and a baby grand piano in the wood-beamed living room.

Her massive master bedroom – with a fireplace and seating area furnished with top-of-the-line leather and cowhide couches, a 62-inch television and a loft office – is almost as large as some of the more modest homes in this northern Illinois farming town.

She built a second custom home south of town that she never lived in but rented to relatives. She paid for a top-notch horse-breeding and training facility where she ran a nationally renowned quarter horse operation.