While $18 million is a mere fraction of the funds caught up in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, it has proven too much to get his former home sold.
The penthouse co-op once owned by the disgraced financier at 133 East 64th Street in Lenox Hill has been pulled from the market once again, the New York Post reported. Real estate investor Lawrence Benenson was asking $18.5 million for the Upper East Side home, which includes an adjacent apartment. There were no offers for the place, which was listed in June.
A national spotlight was trained on the home in 2008, when it was the site of Madoff’s arrest over his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Benenson purchased the place in 2014 for $14 million, tacking on the adjacent apartment two years later for $4 million.
The name of the unit has been changed from Penthouse A to Penthouse S. The seven-bedroom pad was also redecorated with white rugs and furniture, eschewing Madoff’s somber style. The combined apartments feature six and a half bathrooms.
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When Madoff went to prison in 2009, toy mogul Alfred Khan purchased the property from the U.S. Marshals for about $8 million in 2010. He sold it to Benenson four years later.
Madoff died in a prison hospital in 2021 while serving a 150-year sentence for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history, bilking his clients out of $65 billion. Netflix earlier this month debuted a docuseries following his crimes entitled “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street.”
John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens had the listing. Burger did not immediately respond to The Real Deal’s request for comment.
In other Madoff real estate news, Vornado CEO Steve Roth is still trying to flip the late convict’s former Montauk home. Roth listed the property in April for $22.5 million, but the asking price has been knocked all the way down to $16.5 million.
— Holden Walter-Warner