Late Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi’s Former Townhome Sells

The former home of the late Iranian Princess Ashraf Pahlavi has a new owner.

The townhouse at 29 Beekman Place sold for $27.5 million, a 24 percent discount from the $36 million asking price when it hit the market in August, public records show.

The 12,200-square-foot mansion, near the United Nations, was sold to the United Kingdom’s secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs. British diplomat Jude Muxworthy signed the documents.

The seller, an LLC managed by Bronx-based broker Nicholas Chimienti, paid $11.5 million for the six-bedroom, six-bathroom home in 2020, though it initially listed for $50 million in 2014.

Brown Harris Stevens’ Paula Del Nunzio had the listing.

Pahlavi, the twin sister of Iran’s last Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, bought the townhouse in 1980 after she fled her home country during the Iranian Revolution.

Pahlavi was involved in the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and survived an assassination attempt in 1977. The following year, Andy Warhol painted a portrait of Pahlavi titled “Unknown Female (Iranian Princess).”

Pahlavi lived out her exile between her Midtown East mansion and other properties in the U.S. and France. She died in Monaco in 2016 at the age of 96.

Four years after Pahlavi’s death, the townhouse and the rest of her estate became the center of a long legal battle between two of her former employees.

The home almost sold twice before it found a buyer in 2020. Secured Capital Payments signed a contract to purchase the townhouse in 2017 for $17 million, but the princess’s estate manager called off the sale when Secured failed to pay the required amount.

Another buyer signed a contract for the home in 2019 for $10.3 million, but Pahlavi’s estate killed the deal when it filed for bankruptcy.

Famed CBS executive William Paley built the townhouse for his family in 1934. The mansion has nearly 2,000 square feet of outdoor space including seven terraces.