Selling an Upper East Side townhouse can be a lot like turning around a supertanker.
The palatial homes often sit on the market for years as listing agents nudge them into shape: replace the turn-of-the-century finishes, modernize appliances, and of course, whittle away at the price.
When one sells, it is no small feat.
The home at 4 East 79th Street achieved such a victory in September 2024, selling for $56 million, the seventh-highest price fetched for a townhouse in the city’s history. But the property reappeared on the market in November, seeking another peak price.
The home, listed by Sotheby’s International Realty’s Serena Boardman, is now asking $68 million, making it one of the most expensive townhouses on the market in the city. Spanning over 15,000 square feet, the 35-foot-wide limestone mansion is again being marketed as a single-family residence, according to a new listing for the property.
The seller is American-Irish billionaire John Grayken, who founded distressed debt investor Lone Star Funds and serves as chairman of the board, sources familiar with the original sale told The Real Deal.
The reasons for the re-listing aren’t entirely clear. Grayken, who reportedly renounced his American citizenship in 1999 for tax purposes and spends most of his time in London, had bought the home with plans to move in before changing course, sources told TRD.
Grayken did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for Lone Star declined to comment.
Boardman did not respond to a request for comment.
The first three floors hold entertaining spaces, including a reception room, living room and formal dining room, and the building features solid mahogany doors and windows, bespoke marble paneling and floors, English brown oak paneling, and parquet de Versailles and herringbone white oak floors, according to the listing.
The home is also one of the few in the area with triple exposures due to a small strip of land on its western edge, which allows it to look out onto Central Park through a set of large western windows.
The previous owner, the late business magnate Aso Tavitian, bought the home in 1997 and commissioned a gut renovation from architects Peter Pennoyer and Theodore Prudon that was finished in 2004.
After Tavitian died in 2020, his estate listed the home at $65 million in 2023. Boardman had the listing as well.
The latest $68 million asking price has raised some eyebrows, given the short turnaround time from when it last sold for $12 million less.
The listing states that the house has been “updated to include all new systems” as of 2025, including “security, temperature/humidity, audio, lighting, and AV, as well as a new kitchen, bathrooms, and other changes.”
But some brokers expressed skepticism at the new price. “Anybody who can afford that home knows how long that takes,” one agent said of a potential $12 million renovation.
Another summed up the name of the game when it comes to finding a buyer and moving a trophy townhouse: “all you need is one.”
Tricky trades in the neighborhood
The Upper East Side townhouse market has been relatively active this year, driven by a number of homes that cut asking prices before finding a buyer. There have been 63 sales recorded through the end of September this year, up 37 percent from last year, according to a market report from Leslie Garfield.
But the average sale price has fallen 23 percent to roughly $9 million, and the average price per square foot has fallen 10 percent to $1,582.
One of the other few Gilded Age mansions set up as a single-family at 973 Fifth Avenue closed for $46 million in May after initially asking $80 million in 2021. The home underwent a series of price drops until it found a buyer at its final asking price of $49.9 million in February.
The Woolworth Mansion at 4 East 80th Street endured an even longer waiting period, initially hitting the market in 2011 for $90 million. It found a buyer in October after chopping the asking price down to $50 million in March of this year, closing for $38 million in November.
Another Gilded Age manse at 10 East 67th sold for $36 million in October after originally asking $50 million in 2024.
But Grayken can’t be faulted for trying to turn a profit: A TRD analysis found that of the 18 houses on the Upper East Side, only three have sold for less than their previous purchase price.
In addition to his Upper East Side purchase, Grayken bought a $35 million penthouse in Boston in 2016, setting a record at the time for the most expensive condo sold in the city.
Grayken’s firm, Lonestar, has remained active as well, raising a $2.7 billion fund in 2024. It recently bought a downtown Denver tower for $132.5 million and partnered on the purchase of Fort Lauderdale’s Bank of America Plaza for $221 million. The firm is also reportedly circling a 20-story San Francisco tower once owned by WeWork.