Guo Wengui outed as 50K sf NJ mansion buyer

An exiled Chinese tycoon was arrested and charged earlier this week by federal prosecutors who allege he used investments to buy a yacht, expensive mattresses, a Ferrari and a mansion. 

The mansion in question is a historic 50,000-square-foot home in Mahwah, New Jersey, which has not been previously reported as belonging to Guo Wengui. Bloomberg reported the connection days after Guo was charged with orchestrating a conspiracy to defraud his online followers out of $1 billion. 

The home made its own headlines when it hit the market in 2017, asking $48 million, before selling to Las Vegas-based Taurus Fund LLC for $26 million in December 2021. 

The Gilded Age home was built in 1907, sits on 12.5 acres and includes 29 bathrooms, 21 bedrooms and a 45-foot-tall organ. 

The home’s previous owner, businessman Ilija Pavlovic, paid developer Darlington Associates $8.8 million for the home in 2008 before embarking on a yearslong renovation. Pavlovic told the Wall Street Journal at the time of the listing he was interested in the “challenge” of updating the home. 

Assets tied to Guo, a financier and associate of political strategist Steve Bannon, came under harsher scrutiny this week in the wake of his arrest. 

The unsealed federal indictment claimed Guo and a co-defendant used Guo’s strong online presence to solicit investments for entities and programs, for which he promised “outsized financial returns and other benefits.”  

He also sparked local attention when — hours after he was arrested in his unit at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel — a two-alarm fire broke out on the same floor of his penthouse at 781 Fifth Avenue.  

Wengui bought the co-op for $67.5 million in 2015. The 15-room unit hit the market in Feb. 2022 asking $45 million, but that price has since been reduced to $32.5 million.

Genever Holdings, the LLC that owns the Sherry-Netherland penthouse, has tried unloading the apartment several times. The building’s co-op board, which accused Guo of being behind the shell company, even sued Genever for unpaid maintenance charges amounting to nearly $1 million.  

— Ellen Cranley