Buyer Not Found for Extravagant UES Townhouse Owned by the Late Ivana Trump
05/02/2023
Buyer Not Found for Extravagant UES Townhouse Owned by the Late Ivana Trump
By: Serach Nissim
A buyer has yet to snap up the extravagant townhouse owned by the late Ivana Trump.
As reported by the NY Times, the five-story Upper East Side mansion was listed for sale some five months ago, but has yet to be sold. The20-foot wide townhouse is currently listed for $26.5 million with realtor Douglas Elliman.
The limestone home on East 64th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues is just a block away from Central Park. It boasts five bedrooms and five bathrooms and boasts 8,725-square-feet of space. Former President Donald Trump’s older children– which include Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, had lived in the home with his first wife, Ivana. Once sold, the proceeds from the home sale will be divided among their shared children.
Ms. Trump had purchased the townhouse in 1992 after her divorce from Mr. Trump was finalized, paying roughly $2.47 million. She still lived in the home, and died there last July, when she accidently fell down the stairs. The home was purchased from Francois de Menil, who had purchased it in 1979 for $1 million but never moved in. It was used as “a dentist’s office with lots of small rooms,” Ms. Trump once said. She did a complete renovation on the home, tapping George Gregorian, a designer who had collaborated with her on the Trumps’ rebranding of the Plaza Hotel.
“The plumbing was all rotten,” she had told People magazine. “I put, like, a bulldozer through the rooms and totally redid it.” The home was modeled the way she liked it—with animal-print carpeting, Louis XIV-style detailing and oversized mirrors. “There was nothing modern about the house, but it was fabulous, all Old World glamour with bits of camp thrown in,” said Marc Bouwer, a designer whose clothing Ms. Trump often wore. As per the NY Times, the first floor was the entryway and parlor; the second floor housed the colossal living room; the third floor was her personal bedroom and a “leopard-print” sitting room; the children’s bedrooms were on the fourth floor; the fifth floor had Ms. Trump’s additional closet space, as well as several rooms for her mother, Marie Zelnickova, and housekeepers; there was a gym on the sixth floor.
Regardless of all this, so far there has been no buyer for the home. Several speculated reasons include the slowdown in the real estate market due to the increase in interest rates. Also, perhaps, this is considered one of the Trump properties, which have fallen in value since Mr. Trump’s first run for presidency in 2015. Her death at the home certainly isn’t a selling point. Additionally, though certainly luxurious, the home has a particular taste, and would likely need to be remodeled. “It’s a pretty facade,” said Dennis Basso, the designer of Ms. Trump’s many minks and a close friend. “But no one is buying the place and not redoing it. It may have been done by the best designer of its period, but nobody with this kind of money wants a 30-year-old bathroom, and that’s how long she was in that apartment.”
Mrs. Trump also had a home in both South Florida and Saint-Tropez. Her condominium in South Florida, located close to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, was bequeathed to Dorothy Curry, a long-time assistant to Ms. Trump, who had also helped care for the children when they were young.
