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Iranian princess’ Midtown townhouse sells at deep discount

Mansion near UN, which listed at one time for $50M, was caught in legal tussles and on market for years

Princess Ashraf Pahlavi and 29 Beekman Place (Getty, Google Maps)
Princess Ashraf Pahlavi and 29 Beekman Place (Getty, Google Maps)

The long and winding and legally entangled road to sell Princess Ashraf Pahlavi’s Midtown mansion has finally reached an end.

The 12,260-square-foot home at 29 Beekman Place sold for $11.5 million, property records show, a sharp drop from the $50 million it had listed for in 2014.

The deal concludes the protracted battle over the late Iranian princess’ estate, which included two failed deals.

The buyer is a limited liability company whose address tracks to the office of property owner and manager Finkelstein Timberger East Real Estate. Nicholas Chimienti, a broker licensed with his own Bronx-based firm, Chimienti Realty Associates, is listed as the LLC’s manager. Crain’s first reported the sale.

Finkelstein owns a portfolio of multifamily properties in the Bronx that spans 3,500 apartments, according to its website. The landlord has come under fire in the past over increasing rents for stabilized units.

Finkelstein and Chimienti did not respond to requests for comment.

The asking price was $11.45 million when Finkelstein went into contract for the eight-story home in early June. The deal closed on Aug. 5 at $938 per square foot. The home also has an additional 1,500 square feet of outdoor space spread over two terraces.

Investment sales brokers Greg Corbin and Aaron Jungreis of Rosewood Realty Group and residential broker Charlie Attias of Compass represented both sides of the deal. They declined to comment on the buyer’s plans for the mansion, but noted that it was an investment property.

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“We were looking for investors, not an end user,” Corbin said. He attributed the change in buyer profile to their success in closing the sale because, while an individual may be “challenged” to purchase a home for north of $11 million, investors “are able to close in all cash in three weeks.”

The home had previously been listed with residential brokers from Sotheby’s International, the Corcoran Group, Halstead and Douglas Elliman. Attias was hired in February to take over the listing, and Corbin and Jungreis were hired in May.

“They’re investors and they love the property,” Attias said. “We’re glad it’s over.”

The house nearly sold twice before. In 2017, Secured Capital Partners was in contract to purchase the home for $17 million, or $1,387 a foot, but the company that manages the princess’ assets terminated the deal after Secured failed to make required payments.

Then, last year, another buyer went into contract to buy the mansion for $10.3 million but the deal was scuttled due to the princess’ estate filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The proceeds of the sale will go to the princess’ estate, which is still mired in bankruptcy proceedings and disputes with one of her former employees and one of the buyers who entered into a contract to buy the Beekman Place property.

Write to Erin Hudson at ekh@therealdeal.com

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Luxury Real EstateManhattan