Hedge funder wants $50M for UES townhouse with a past

Hedge funder Charles Murphy – who went to great lengths trying to unload his limestone townhouse during the financial crisis to no avail – has put the 25-foot wide house at 7 East 67th Street back on the market, asking $49.5 million.

Murphy, a partner at Paulson & Co. Inc., the investment firm started by John Paulson, bought the property from Seagram heir Matthew Bronfman in 2007, paying a then-record $33 million. At the time, no townhouse narrower than 26 feet sold for more than $30 million.

Bronfman, though, was the clear winner in that sale, having paid a reported $3 million in 1994 for the house, previously owned by the Foundation for Depression and Manic Depression.

Murphy’s mood no doubt plummeted in 2009, when it was discovered that the hedge fund he worked for at the time, Fairfield Greenwich Group, invested more than $7 billion with Bernie Madoff. Murphy was unemployed when, upon learning a neighbor was about to sell her townhouse for $25 million, he tried to interest the would-be buyer in his own home instead. When it didn’t work, Murphy listed the house for $37 million in 2009.

Now it’s back on the market for $4,385 a square foot. Corcoran Group’s Carrie Chiang has the listing.

Measuring 11,500 square feet, the house, built in 1882, was gutted by Bronfman. It has eight bedrooms, 11 fireplaces, Venetian plastered walls and two elliptical staircases.