Vanessa Sherry Bronfman became a sales associate at the brokerage Key Ventures only a few months ago.
For one of her first assignments, she’ll be marketing a $27.25 million townhouse.
In representing the 40-foot-wide townhouse at 117 East 69th Street, she’ll be joined by veteran brokers Alina Pedroso and Paula Del Nunzio from Brown Harris Stevens, and Carrie Chiang from the Corcoran Group. Still, scoring such a pricey listing is quite an impressive feat for a newbie broker.
Of course, it helps that the house is owned by Vanessa’s father, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music Group chairman-CEO and billionaire heir to the Seagram fortune.
“My dad’s always been really supportive of all of us kids,” Bronfman said.
She and her father were having dinner one night recently when he mentioned he was putting the mansion on the market. “I asked if I could show it, because we have a couple of clients who might be interested, and he said ‘of course.’”
He’d worked with Corcoran and BHS in the past, she said, and since she “just became a real estate agent,” it didn’t make sense to give her the exclusive. But, “he didn’t want me to go through so much red tape in order to be able to [show] it,” she said.
Vanessa is one of Bronfman’s three children with his ex-wife, actress Sherry Brewer. Vanessa’s brother, Ben, was the guitar player and vocalist for the band the Exit, and has a son with singer Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, better known as M.I.A. Bronfman has four other children with current wife, Clarissa.
The house at 117 East 69th Street has made headlines because it was once owned by Muppets creator Jim Henson, and became known as the Muppet Workshop. Bronfman paid $28.5 million for it in 2008 with plans to renovate and move in, but instead decided to relocate his family to London, and never finished the job.
“He’s left it open to be renovated by the next owner,” Vanessa said.
However, there seems to be some disagreement within the brokerage community about who has the high-profile house, located between Lexington and Park avenues. BHS released a statement that said: “The Bronfman listing is a co-exclusive between Corcoran (Carrie Chiang ) and Brown Harris Stevens (Alina Pedroso and Paula Del Nunzio). These two firms can co-broker and market the property.”
BHS and Corcoran did not respond to follow-up questions about Bronfman’s involvement.
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