The Upper East Side home where disgraced financier Bernie Madoff was arrested in 2008 has hit the market for the third time in a dozen years.
Real estate investor Lawrence Benenson, who bought the penthouse at 133 East 64th Street in Lenox Hill for $14 million in 2014, is asking $18.5 million for it, according to Crain’s. The listing includes the adjacent apartment 11C, which Benenson bought for $4 million in 2016, meaning he will essentially break even on the sale if the listing fetches its asking price. Buyers can choose to buy only Madoff’s old apartment for $15 million.
The listing, with John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens, may include some attempts to conceal the co-op unit’s history. Its name has been changed from Penthouse A to Penthouse S, according to Crain’s, and the seven-bedroom apartment has been redecorated to trade in the more somber tones preferred by Madoff for white rugs and furniture.
(Source: Brown Harris Stevens)
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After Madoff went to prison in 2009, toy mogul Alfred Khan bought the penthouse from the U.S. Marshals in 2010 for around $8 million. He sold it to Benenson four years later for $14.5 million.
(Source: Brown Harris Stevens)
Madoff died last year in a prison hospital while serving a 150-year sentence for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding his clients of just under $65 billion.
The notorious con man wasn’t the prewar co-op’s only infamous resident. Matt Lauer, the disgraced former host of NBC’s “Today” show, bought a four-bedroom unit in there in 2004 for $5.9 million and sold it for $8 million in 2018, shortly after his firing from the network amid sexual misconduct allegations.
[Crain’s] – Harrison Connery