The Manhattan townhouse known as the Herbert N. Straus mansion has sold, giving new life to the architecturally significant, and proportionally stunning, New York City residential landmark which had been owned by Jeffrey Epstein. The property hit the market last summer at $88 million before seeing a reduction to $65 million, and ultimately sold for about $51 million.
The Lenox Hill townhome stretches seven stories skyward, and is at least forty feet wide. Its interiors measure at least 28,000 sq. ft., making the Straus mansion one of the largest private residences in Manhattan. It was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer. Straus was heir to Macy’s. Straus never saw the home to completion, though. His mansion was finished in 1944, a decade after his death.
The home’s soaring double doors are an indication of the opulence within. There are 40 rooms in the Straus mansion, with some lifted wholesale from seventeenth- or eighteenth-century mansions in Europe and shipped across the pond to be assembled in the townhouse. The property has been both a school and a hospital in its lifetime.
Proceeds from the sale will be used to compensate Epstein’s victims.