Harkness Mansion increasingly unlikely to shatter its own record

J. Christopher Flowers, the private equity magnate who, in 2006, logged the city’s priciest residential transaction ever with his $53 million purchase of the Harkness Mansion at 4 East 75th Street, has gotten more serious in his search for buyers for the townhouse in the wake of a separation from his wife, according to the Wall Street Journal. Last year, it was reported that Flowers, who has already put more than $4 million worth of renovations into the 114-year-old, 50-foot-wide mansion, wants around $50 million for the home. But he may be unlikely to get even that, sources now say. While a number of interested buyers have reportedly emerged in recent months as the high end of the market has picked up, their price range has apparently been closer to between $40 million and $45 million. Flowers is working with a broker (Brown Harris Stevens’ Sami Hassoumi, who sold him the house in 2006, was said to be showing the home to prospective buyers last year) but isn’t formally marketing the property as for sale. [WSJ]

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