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For longer than the late Ponzi master spent in prison for stealing $18 billion from Kevin Bacon and other investors, Bernie Madoff’s little beachside hideaway has sat awaiting new owners who would love it as much as Bern and Ruth did in the good old days. For back in 2009, real-estate titan Steve Roth snapped up the place he’d built and sold the Madoffs back in 1980 for just under $9.5 million from the U.S. Marshals. Alas, in the intervening three decades—as any careful and aesthetically-inclined viewer of Netflix’s “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street” cannot help but have noticed—tastes have changed significantly. Apparently, “unremarkable” houses with Formica countertops, smallish bedrooms and hideous fireplaces/television cabinets don’t appeal as much as they did during the Carter administration, however spectacular the views of the frankly too-close-for-comfort Atlantic Ocean might be.
So Roth fixed it as best he could, hiring architect and interior designer Thierry Despont to do something about the general “lack of style.” And after a tasteful, decade-long pause to allow the reek of fraud to waft out to sea, Roth finally put it on the market five years ago for $21 million.
Alas, the stench lingered. Or the fear of rising waters. Whatever. Point is, there were no takers: Not at $21 million. Not at $19.9 million a year later, nor at $17.9 million a year after that. So Roth took the Steve Cohen approach and pulled the place off the market. Then two years ago, Madoff finally died, and Roth decided to give it a go once more, cheekily seeking $22.5 million for it last spring. Still, even with its infamous former habitué dead and buried (well, actually, dead, cremated and sitting in his lawyer’s office), there were no takers. So Roth, pulling another page from Steve Cohen’s book, threw up his hands and said, “Fine! You can have it for $16.5 million,” which, taking into account the purchase price, presumably pricey renovations, maintenance, high Long Island taxes, opportunity costs of sitting on the place for 14 years and the rest of it, seems unlikely to be much more than Roth invested in it, if that (another Steve Cohen special). He might have done better just investing that money with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities back in the day. And that is assuming he even got the $16.5 million.
The final sale price is not yet known.
As are the lucky buyers. But if you aren’t them and still want a piece of the former real-estate portfolio of a “financial serial killer” at a handsome discount, well, you may eventually get your chance.
This month, a penthouse co-op that Madoff owned on the Upper East Side was pulled off the market after seven months without an offer. Real estate investor Lawrence Benenson, who purchased the home for $14 million in 2014 and an adjacent apartment for $4 million, was asking $18.5 million for the pre-war unit.
Of course, if you prefer your residences of historic financiers to be without the taint of scandal, the family of the late hedge-fund mogul Julian Robertson—having unloaded his New Zealand vineyards—might have just what you’re looking for.
An apartment on Central Park long owned by the late hedge-fund founder Julian H. Robertson Jr. is on the market for $30 million…. The full-floor co-op apartment spans about 6,500 square feet, according to a listing description posted by Ms. Douglas. It has a 38-foot-long living room with roughly 18-foot ceilings, and three arched doors that open onto a terrace overlooking Central Park…. The unit is located at Hampshire House, a 1930s-era building known for its steeply pitched copper roof.
Let’s hope whoever winds up with it enjoys it more than the recipients of Robertson’s $200 million art collection.
Someone finally bought Bernie Madoff’s Hamptons home years after forced sale [N.Y. Post]
Steve Roth finally flips Madoff’s former Montauk home [TheRealDeal]
Central Park Home of Late Hedge-Fund Titan Julian Robertson Jr. Lists for $30 Million [WSJ]
Julian Robertson’s Art Bequest Angers Mayor in New Zealand [Bloomberg]
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