Beaux-Arts mansion on UES enters contract

58 East 66th likely went for less than $20M list price, says Jed Garfield

Jed Garfield and 58 East 66th Street
Jed Garfield and 58 East 66th Street

The Beaux-Arts mansion at 58 East 66th Street listed for $20 million before entering contract recently, but Jed Garfield, managing partner at Leslie J. Garfield & Co., believes it may have sold for significantly less.

The reason? While the limestone façade, wrought-iron doors and wood-burning fireplaces have all been preserved, the interior, or at least part of it, was largely demolished, Garfield told the Commercial Observer. “There’s pretty much nothing in there,” he said. For that reason, Garfield reckons it went for roughly its 2008 purchase price of $14.8 million. “I think that if whoever has it got it in the mid-teens, they’ll probably do O.K. with it. It seems now like asking prices always reflect a finished product, even if the item is not,” Garfield told the Observer.

The mansion was last listed with Stribling & Associates’ Catherine Auerbach, who conceded in the listing the property is a “construction site” that could need $3 to $6 million worth of work, according to the Observer.

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The buyer remains unknown, but the Observer reported the seller is Nancy Vella, owner of boutique children’s store Florence Fancy and wife of developer Zach Vella. [NYO]Tom DiChristopher