A Pair of Pricey Properties Owned by Disgraced Financier Jeffrey Epstein Have Hit the Market
Two homes owned by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein have hit the real estate market, with a combined asking price of more than $110 million.
Epstein’s town house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side has just been listed for $88 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, while a waterfront compound in Palm Beach, Florida, has gone on the market for just under $22 million.
One of the New York’s most coveted properties, the seven-story Beaux Arts mansion features 15-foot oak entry doors, imported French limestone, and custom ornamental ironworks. Other luxe touches include heated sidewalks and an immense gallery space that spans the width of the entire house.
Should it fetch its asking price, the 40-room house will set a record for townhomes in Manhattan, according to sources.
Overlooking the Frick Collection and Central Park, the property was built by Gilded Age architect Horace Trumbauer in the 1930s for Herbert Straus, an heir to the Macy’s department store fortune. Straus died before ever taking residence, though, and in the 1940s the building served as a convalescent hospital after it was donated to the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Later it was home to the Birch Wathen School, a private prep school.
Retail billionaire Les Wexner reconverted the property into a private residence in 1989; Epstein moved in and considered the house his own from 1996.
It’s billed as the largest single-family home in New York City, though listing agent Adam D. Modlin suggests several other uses for the property.
“This historic landmark could easily present itself as a palatial consulate, embassy, foundation, or a museum to once again house some of the world’s greatest works of art,” the listing reads.
Epstein’s 14,200 square-foot compound in Palm Beach, meanwhile, was designed by architect John Volk and built in the 1950s. It consists of a six-bedroom main house, a staff house, a pool house, and three-car garage, according to the Journal.
Purchased by Epstein in 1990 for $2.5 million, the property stretches along the Intracoastal Waterway just over a mile from the Mar-a-Lago Club, President Donald Trump’s private club and retreat, and offers westerly views of the Everglades Island and Tarpon Island.
Epstein had extensive real estate holdings at the time of his death, Town & Country reported, including his sprawling “Zorro Ranch” in New Mexico, an apartment in Paris’s ritzy 16th Arrondissement, and two private islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The 66-year-old was found to have died by suicide last August while facing federal sex-trafficking charges. Prosecutors allege Epstein used both his New York and Palm Beach properties to entice underage girls into sexual encounters.
But real estate agents don’t seem worried his infamy will hurt sales.
“I believe the past ownership of the property will bear no relationship to its future,” Corcoran Group’s Kerry Warwick told the Journal. “The location and what can be done with it is really what matters.”
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
