One celebrity chef is betting the onset of the spring season will have prospective luxury property buyers on the hunt for a sizzling-hot bargain.
Star chef and television personality Emeril Lagasse is planning to reduce the asking price of his Lenox Hill townhouse by a cool $1.5 million, or 10 percent, to “take advantage of the spring market,” “Selling New York” brokers Michele Kleier and daughter Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern, who are listing the property, told The Real Deal today. The price will be officially slashed later this afternoon.
Lagasse, who placed the single-family limestone mansion at 158 East 61st Street, between Third and Lexington avenues, on the market three months ago with the Gumley Haft Kleier brokers for $15 million, is dropping the price to $13.5 million following a recent disappointing prospective sale that fell through.
“We had a contract out and now it’s not happening for reasons that had nothing to do with the house,” Michele Kleier said. “It was to do with personal reasons on the buyer’s end.”
The identity of the prospective buyer and the value of the contract were not immediately clear.
Lagasse and his family do not live in the city full-time, Kleier explained when asked why the chef and cookbook author was selling.
The chef, who bought the property for $11.5 million in 2009, according to property records, operates restaurants in Pennsylvania and New Orleans. In late January, he also opened a new restaurant in Charlotte, N.C. named e2 Emeril’s Eatery. On TV, he is best-known for hosting over 2,000 shows on the Food Network and his latest series, “Emeril’s Table” on the Hallmark Channel. The Emeril empire generates an estimated $150 million annually in revenue, according to news reports.
The six-story, Georgian-inspired five-bedroom, seven-bathroom townhouse, which was built in 1910, has 6,900 square feet of interior space, 1,000 square feet of terraces and a European inspired stone garden, according to the listing. It features an elevator, a wood-paneled wine cellar, four gas fireplaces and a curved-wood staircase.
A spokesperson for Lagasse was not immediately available to comment.