AMAGANSETT, N.Y. (AP) -Standing at his restaurant's empty bar, Randy Lerner scans the epic sea struggle waging overhead.
Splashed in vivid colors, artist Stephen Farthing's ``Hands of Fate'' oil paintings dominate the main room, offering a surreal depiction of one of history's signature naval conflicts, the Battle of Trafalgar.
Hanging side-by-side, the works feature enormous pairs of hands descending from the heavens and sifting the turbulent blue-green waters, upending some of the warring ships.
On Oct. 21, 1805, Britain's Royal Navy, heavily outnumbered and outgunned, asserted its nautical supremacy by destroying 22 ships in the French and Spanish fleets without losing a single vessel.
Grabbing a reference book, Lerner, an avid art collector and history buff, excitedly traces his fingers across a page showing how the flagship HMS Victory, under the direction of Lord Admiral Nelson, courageously split the enemy lines with an aggressive maneuver.
``Just like that,'' Lerner says.
Two hundred years later, Lerner has made his own bold move.
Owner of the Cleveland Browns since 2002, Lerner recently doubled his sports domain by buying Aston Villa of the English Premier League. He's now trying to navigate two tradition-rich sports franchises on opposite sides of the Atlantic through troubled seas.
At the moment, Birmingham-based Aston Villa, which he bought for $118 million in September, is sailing along nicely.
The Browns, the treasured orange-helmeted team he cheered for as a kid and inherited four years ago following his father Al's death, continues to search for its course on the field.
Although Lerner's interest in buying a Premier League club predated him getting the Browns, the purchase surprised Cleveland fans, some of whom remain bitter about their beloved team being moved to Baltimore by Art Modell.
Lerner's purchase - he followed Malcolm Glazer, who owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and took over soccer giant Manchester United in 2005 - raised more questions about his commitment and prompted speculation he's positioning himself to sell the Browns.
In a rare interview with The Associated Press, Lerner insisted he's dedicated to rebuilding them.
``I'm not selling the Cleveland Browns,'' he said adamantly last week in his office overlooking the team's practice fields in Berea, Ohio.
What could change his mind?
``Nothing,'' he said.
A relative newcomer to sports ownership, the 44-year-old father of four is easygoing, analytical and private. He's mostly unknown and thus misunderstood by long-suffering Browns fans, who have had little to cheer since the team's expansion return in 1999.
Lerner feels their pain. He's one of them. In his eyes, the Browns aren't his. They belong to Cleveland - always have, always will.
To Villa's rabid supporters, he's seen as a savior, rescuing a neglected franchise, previously owned by Doug Ellis, with an infusion of cash needed to compete with the league's big boys. Last month, Lerner paid for 6,000 fans to travel by bus to London to watch a match against Chelsea.
``Ellis gave the club financial stability, but he stayed way too long and just wouldn't spend any money on new players,'' 30-year Villa fan Carl Jefford said. ``That's what we want Randy Lerner to do.''
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For someone estimated to be worth $1.5 billion, Lerner has none of the pretenses of immense wealth.
It's lunchtime on a slate-gray Tuesday and Lerner, dressed in jeans, a well-worn gray sweat shirt and an ``NFL on CBS'' baseball cap, turns off Route 27 into The Meeting House's parking lot.
He built the restaurant with its barn-like ceilings and hanging brass lamps on the site of a clothing boutique in the center of this charming seaside hamlet nestled next to the Hamptons.
Lerner drives a pickup. His wheels and the area, settled by the English in 1680, perfectly suit him, a child of Cleveland who graduated from Columbia and studied at Cambridge.
``I don't think I'll ever leave,'' said Lerner, who enjoys the casual pace and the East End's summer vibe. ``I love this place.''
From here, he blends in with the locals and manages his fledgling sports empire, his family's charitable endeavors and other business.
He often starts his day at the restaurant, checking in with hand-picked team executives and advisers on both continents, as well as friends such as New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi and NBA commissioner David Stern.
With a small airport nearby, Lerner quickly can get to Cleveland for Browns matters or to see his mom and sister, who still live in Ohio. His acquisition of Villa also sends him regularly to England, a destination he often visited as chairman of MBNA, the credit-card giant his late father helped build.
Living outside Cleveland has prompted complaints that he is detached and that the Browns are nothing more than a hobby, a criticism Lerner sloughs off.
``There's a certain amount you just have to take on the chin and move on,'' he said. ``It comes with the territory.''
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The Browns can't stop losing.
One of only a handful of teams never in the Super Bowl, the Browns have had one winning season since '99 and have averaged more than 12 losses per season in the seven-year span. Cleveland is on its third coach and third GM since its rebirth, and the club has undergone a major front-office overhaul.
The Browns' 2006 season - they're 4-10 heading into Sunday's game against Glazer's Buccaneers - has been scuttled by injuries, the biggest to center LeCharles Bentley, their prized free-agent signing, who tore a knee tendon on the second day of training camp.
Moments after Bentley went down, thunder rumbled across Northeast Ohio. Another victim of Cleveland's curse.
The city hasn't experienced a major sports championship since 1964, a 42-year drought lowlighted by heartbreaking defeats courtesy of John Elway, Michael Jordan and the Florida Marlins.
There are generations of Cleveland fans who know only failure and misery, a fact that troubles Lerner but one he sees as an opportunity to bring fans a winner.
He admires Cleveland fans' resiliency. And loyalty.
If it were up to him, Cleveland Browns Stadium (built in the '90s with taxpayer money) still would be called Cleveland Municipal Stadium. It's the city's property, and Lerner views himself as its caretaker.
He has resisted raising ticket prices, despite pressure from other NFL owners, and Lerner continually has rejected numerous proposals to radically change the Browns uniforms as a way of increasing merchandise revenue.
Until now, he hasn't conveyed those beliefs publicly. Lerner disdains the notion that owners need to not just be seen, but heard. He had his bio dropped from the team's media guide this season.
``No one cares who owns the team,'' he said.
Accorsi has no doubts about Lerner's commitment.
``Randy feels an incredible obligation to his dad's memory,'' he said. ``The Lerners didn't get into this for money or ego. They care deeply about the Browns and what they mean to Cleveland.''
Lerner never imagined having an NFL team, so he has had to learn on the fly. He's conceded there have been mistakes and vows not to repeat them. Although the Browns remain a far-from-finished work on the field, Lerner feels the club finally is fixed internally.
Last year, he hired Phil Savage, Baltimore's former director of player personnel, as his general manager, the architect he believes ultimately will restore the Browns.
The wins haven't come yet, but Lerner feels Savage, regarded as one of football's top talent evaluators, has his team on the path to winning.
``Phil will get us there, and I will make sure 100 percent of the time that he has the revenue and the support,'' Lerner said.
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At Villa Park, they serenade the American owner.
``One Randy Lerner, there's only one Randy Lerner,'' fans sing to the tune of ``Guantanamera'' as a Browns flag waves over the famed Holte End, Villa's version of Cleveland's rowdy Dawg Pound.
After determining his ownership role with the Browns would be hands-off, Lerner, a longtime admirer of the world's most popular game, began exploring opportunities to buy an English club.
Aston Villa fit all his criteria: a large market, a storied franchise, the Premier League's renown and room to grow.
So far, the marriage has been blissful.
``It's been everything and more than I could have hoped for,'' Lerner said. ``But I also know it has been a honeymoon of sorts, and we've got a lot of work to do.''
Like the Browns, Villa is chasing past glory. The club won six of its seven league titles before 1910. But the Claret and Blue haven't won one since 1981 and captured its only European Cup championship the following year.
Under new manager Martin O'Neill, who previously turned around Celtic, Villa was ninth in the 20-team league heading into Saturday's match against Manchester United.
Lerner has learned quickly that fans of English football have no tolerance for anything but results.
``I've learned keep your mouth shut. Do it, talk about it later,'' he said.
Not unlike in Cleveland, Villa fans want championships and for Lerner, one of six foreign owners in the league, to do whatever's necessary to get them.
``I don't care if he's not English,'' fan Jefford says, ``as long as he wins titles he could be from Mars.''
Lerner has no fears about handling dual ownership.
``As long as you deliver on the field, people will believe you can do both,'' he said. ``If you can't deliver on the field then there are going to be questions, it's that simple.''
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AP Soccer Writer Robert Millward in London contributed to this report.
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