Nautica founder sells Flatiron townhouse for $27M

David Chu bought property for about $9M in 2004

From left: townhouse at 25 E. 22nd Street and David Chu
From left: townhouse at 25 E. 22nd Street and David Chu

Nautica founder David Chu sold his six-story townhouse in the Flatiron District for nearly $27 million.

The buyer – listed as Hannah Charitable LLC – paid $26.8 million for the 19,800-square-foot property, according to property records. The townhouse had been listed at $29.99 million in May 2013. Chu, currently the CEO at jewelry firm Georg Jensen, bought the building at 25 East 22nd Street for $9.3 million in 2004, as The Real Deal previously reported.

He gut renovated the townhouse over the years, adding two floors and converting it to a mixed-use space that includes a one-bedroom pied-à-terre.

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The property features an elevator, 14-foot ceilings on the first floor and two sixth-floor terraces. Corcoran Group brokers Richard Phan, Carrie Chiang and Janet Wang had the listing.

According to property records, Hannah Charitable LLC shares an address at 160 Fifth Avenue with the Simons Foundation, an autism research organization founded by mathematician and investor Jim Simons, who founded the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC, and his wife Marilyn.

A call to the Simons Foundation wasn’t immediately answered.