Jeffrey Epstein’s Interest in Palm House Hotel, Real Estate

Beyond Jeffrey Epstein’s interests in connecting with princes, former presidents and financial heavyweights, the late, disgraced financier sometimes extended his attention to commercial real estate.

Among the more than 20,000 documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from Epstein’s estate and released to the public in November were emails with links to The Real Deal articles and what appears to be a saved or printed TRD web story from June 2019. The emails and TRD articles touched on a Palm Beach development deal, a members-only club and a dealmaker who faced tax issues.

The documents shed some light on Epstein’s Rolodex of business contacts at a time when the source of his wealth still remains somewhat of a mystery. At the time of his death in August 2019, Epstein’s net worth was close to $600 million, which was largely thanks to two clients, Les Wexner and Leon Black. Epstein was the money manager to billionaire L Brands founder Wexner and he provided tax and estate planning services to Black, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management.

But Epstein appears to have had a keen interest in real estate more generally.

A review of the documents shows he was also at least nominally interested in one Palm Beach development deal. In another email, he claims to have put the founders of a popular members-only club with a location in New York City “in business.” One email refers to a TRD article about a case brought against a New York developer for tax evasion. Others provide insight into Epstein’s partnership with New York real estate heavyweight Andrew Farkas on a small marina in the British Virgin Islands.

Opaque real estate connections

Epstein had owned ultra-luxury homes, but most reporting has not suggested that he was looking at commercial projects. His own property included a mansion in Palm Beach, a townhouse in Manhattan, an estate in New Mexico and, most notably, two private islands in the Virgin Islands where his victims were allegedly sexually abused.

Though his brother, Mark Epstein, ran a New York real estate firm called Ossa Properties, Mark consistently maintained Jeffrey was not involved. After Ossa acquired a number of condo units in a building at 301 East 66th Street in Manhattan, Mark told Crain’s in 2019 that his brother was renting apartments there, and that he had acquired the building in the early ’90s based on a tip from Jeffrey. He added that his brother was not his business partner and his brother’s investment firm, J. Epstein & Co., had no connection to Ossa Properties, despite public filings showing otherwise.

But Jonathan Barrett, who worked at Ossa Properties, told the Wall Street Journal in 2019 through a spokesperson that Ossa and J. Epstein & Co. were indeed affiliated.

Jonathan Barrett’s brother Anthony appears to be the point person in recent years at Ossa Properties and has signed for an affiliate of the company in public documents recorded with the city. (Ossa Properties did not return a request to comment.)

New details

Emails released by Congress show that Anthony Barrett at least considered Jeffrey Epstein a possible buyer of commercial real estate in Palm Beach.

Among the large batch of documents is an email from Barrett to Epstein in October 2018. In the email, with the subject line “Deal info,” Barrett sent Epstein the text of a recent TRD article about the Palm House hotel in Palm Beach, which was heading to a bankruptcy sale.

Anthony Barrett: Hi jeffrey,

Cam across this…perhaps you have some interest?

Epstein responded: “funn, but quite a mess.”

Federal prosecutors had accused the previous developer of the Palm House Hotel of siphoning millions of dollars in foreign investors’ money. The investors, who put in more than $44 million as part of the federal EB-5 program, filed their own lawsuit, alleging the development group falsely touted that the hotel’s advisory board would include Bill Clinton and Donald Trump and Celine Dion, Bill Koch and Tony Bennett were already members at the hotel’s club.

Epstein, who had a house about a mile away in Palm Beach, apparently had some interest in the story.

Among the other documents provided by the Epstein estate and released by Congress was a digital version of a more in-depth article about the saga of the Palm House hotel that TRD published in June 2019. The document shows the story was saved a week after TRD published the story.

Just one month later, in July 2019, Epstein was arrested in New Jersey and charged with sex trafficking. Prosecutors alleged Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of underage girls. In August, Epstein died by suicide while awaiting charges in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan.

There were other emails discussing news articles about various real estate happenings. In an April 2018 email, Richard Kahn, Epstein’s accountant, sent Epstein a TRD article about Michael Shvo’s recent settlement of his tax evasion case with the Manhattan District Attorney.

Kahn: “direction of trump? criminal tax fraud??”

Epstein responded: “Careful. Max might call.”

It is not clear who Max is or why Kahn should be careful.

The documents also showed emails between Epstein and Core Club’s co-founder Jennie Enterprise. Core Club, a members-only club popular with the ultra-rich and hedge funders, opened its doors in 2005 at East 55th Street.

“I helped put them in biz,” Epstein wrote in a personal message to an unknown recipient in 2018, referring to Core Club’s co-founders.

Core Club, through a spokesperson, refuted the idea of Epstein’s involvement.

“[I]n no way, shape, or form did this individual play any business development role in the company, and any suggestion to the contrary is baseless,” the spokesperson said to TRD in an email.