He built a $35M dream house — and sold it for chump change

A hedge funder’s megamansion just sold for $9M

Sometimes dreams cost more than they’re worth.

A hedge fund manager and minority owner of the Arizona Coyotes, Andrew Barroway, found this out the hard way. He sold his Gothic Revival-style home outside of Philadelphia for $9.26 million after spending around $35 million to build it, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A trust tied to the family of digital advertising company Catalyst Experiential’s CEO Thaddeus Bartkowski bought the home and the 32-acre property it sits on. Bartkowski had been renting the estate for a little over a year before buying it at the discounted price.

Multiple agents, including Harrison Todd of Keller Williams, Lavina Smerconish of Compass and Paramount Realty USA, were involved in the deal.

Barroway spent $12 million on the land in Gladwyne in 2006 and then spent the next few years building a $23 million, 13,000-square-foot mansion. The six-bedroom home has a classical stone exterior with limestone accents. Inside, it has a movie theater, wine cellar with tasting rooms, gym with glass doors and indoor lap pool.

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The grounds also include a hot tub, seven-car garage, private tennis court and trails designed for all-terrain vehicles. It also features two historic buildings, dating back to the 1700s.

Bartkowski, who said he was drawn to the property because the style was reminiscent of the more historic homes in the area, told the outlet that the transaction involved multiple additional assets that weren’t reflected in the $9.26 million price, but declined to comment further.

The fact that the home sold for a price so much lower than what the seller spent on it proves that people aren’t always willing to “pay a premium for someone else’s vision,” Harry Cherry of eXp Realty, who wasn’t involved in the deal, told the outlet. Even in high-end markets like Gladwyne, buyers with that kind of capital are still more likely to build their own dream house instead of buying someone else’s for a comparable price.

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— Victoria Pruitt