Oleg Cassini’s Former Gramercy Home Sells for $7M

Oleg Cassini’s former Gramercy Park townhouse has sold for the second time in three years.

The late fashion designer’s former home at 135 East 19th Street sold for $7.4 million, according to public records. The home previously traded in a 2022 auction for $5 million.

At one point, the home had been valued near $15 million, close to what the seller initially tried to flip the house for after one year after buying it. The seller lopped off the price by the millions until turning the listing over to Douglas Elliman’s Eleonora Srugo in July, asking $8 million.

Four months later, the home was in contract. Serhant’s Ryan Serhant brought the buyer, according to StreetEasy.

The most recent sales process was markedly less painful than the previous sale, which came after Cassini’s grandson sued in an effort to force a sale of the home as part of a larger battle over his grandfather’s $55 million estate.

The sale comes in the same month that another former Cassini property has also found a buyer amid legal turmoil. Owned by Nestor Cassini’s sister, Peggy Nestor, the 18,000-square-foot home at 15 East 63rd has been tied up in bankruptcy proceedings for years as the sisters have stymied efforts to sell the home, according to court filings.

But the trustee overseeing the sale of the home as part of the bankruptcy reported finding a buyer willing to pay $34.5 million and is seeking court approval to move ahead with the sales process using that offer as a stalking horse bid.

Cassini, who rose to prominence styling celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, had secretly married Marianne Nestor Cassini, who many had thought was his business partner until after his death in 2006. In 2018, Nestor Cassini was jailed for six months for failing to comply with court orders in regards to how to distribute her late husband’s estate, of which Cassini’s four grandchildren maintained they were entitled to half.

The buyer, who is concealed by a limited liability company, is getting a fixer-upper, which may explain why the home has still sold so far below its previously assessed value.

Built in 17th-century Amsterdam, the home has been taken apart and moved twice: first in 1845 from Europe to the Upper West Side, and then again in 1910, to its current location, where it was reimagined into its Gothic Revival style for sugar magnate Joseph B. Thomas.

Cassini used the home as a party house, hosting salons and some of his A-list clients and romantic interests, like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, Srugo told the New York Post.

“Someone should restore it to its glory,” she said.

Spanning almost 7,000 square feet and four stories, the home has six bedrooms and five full bathrooms. The first floor, which has a Flemish stone floor at the entrance, features a large living room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, paneled walls, a stone fireplace and adjacent glass solarium with a stone fountain inside. Every floor has stained-glass windows.