Steamboat Inn owner back in the Spicer Mansion picture
Nov. 15—MYSTIC — MMP Holdings, the entity set to acquire the Spicer Mansion hotel, wants to assign its winning foreclosure-sale bid on the property to a limited-liability company led by Walter "Sonny" Glaser Jr., the Steamboat Inn owner who has twice bid unsuccessfully on the mansion.
In a filing last week in New London Superior Court, an attorney for MMP Holdings sought approval of an agreement reached between MMP and "Captain's Mansion LLC," whose managing member is Glaser, state business records show.
Glaser filed papers for Captain's Mansion with the Secretary of the State's Office on Nov. 2.
MMP Holdings signed a sales agreement for the purchase of Spicer Mansion after submitting a winning bid of $3,050,000 in an Oct. 22 foreclosure sale. Glaser, one of two other bidders, offered the next highest bid, $2.1 million.
"MMP Holdings proposes to assign to Captain's Mansion all of its rights and obligations under the Bid and Sales Agreement," MMP's attorney, Joshua Cohen, wrote in the court filing. "The effect of the Assignment Agreement is to substitute one limited liability company for another as the party executing on the Bid and performing under the Sales Agreement."
Captain's Mansion already has escrowed $367,000 ― the amount of MMP's deposit on the Spicer Mansion purchase ― pending the court's approval of the assignment. If the assignment is approved, the sum will be refunded to MMP. Captain's Mansion would then have to pay the balance of MMP's $3,050,000 bid.
MMP's purchase of Spicer Mansion was being financed by Worth Avenue Capital, which has the same Guilford address as MMP. Following last month's foreclosure sale, neither Cohen nor Michael Ciaburri, a Worth Avenue principal, would comment on their plans for Spicer Mansion. Cohen did not respond to messages Tuesday.
Attempts to reach Glaser, who has residences in Greenwich and Mystic, also were unsuccessful.
The fate of Spicer Mansion, an eight-room boutique hotel that opened in 2016, has been uncertain since at least 2019, when Chelsea Groton Bank filed a foreclosure complaint against the owner, Gates Realty Holdings, alleging it had defaulted on a $1.8 million mortgage loan. Brian Gates, the Gates Realty principal, had secured the loan with second, third and fourth mortgages on his Stonington residence and properties he owns in Plainfield and Putnam.
MMP holds subordinate mortgages on some of the properties, including Spicer Mansion.
Glaser, who in 2019 invested $11.5 million in residential and commercial space in downtown Mystic, including Steamboat Inn, an 11-room hotel overlooking the Mystic River, tentatively agreed to buy Spicer Mansion earlier this year. The deal, for $3.825 million, was announced prior to a foreclosure sale that was consequently canceled.
For reasons that have not become public, the deal fell through, and Spicer Mansion was put up for auction in March. Glaser was among the bidders, ultimately offering $2.3 million before Ross Weingarten, a Gates business partner, submitted a winning bid of $3.52 million.
Weingarten subsequently failed to close on the Spicer Mansion purchase, leading to the second foreclosure sale last month.
In the meantime, Gates filed for Chapter 11, Subchapter V bankruptcy, hoping to reorganize his debt while continuing to operate Spicer Mansion. At a hearing last month, a U.S. bankruptcy judge approved a court-appointed trustee's request that the case be converted to Chapter 7, in which Gates' remaining assets will be liquidated to pay creditors.
Gates, who did not attend the hearing, raised no objection to the conversion and "wants to move on with his life," his attorney told the judge.
