UPPER EAST SIDE — A mansion owned by a prominent art-dealing family just sold this week for $79.5 million — reportedly making it the most expensive townhouse ever sold in the city.
The five-story 19 E. 64th St. townhouse near Madison Avenue was listed by Cushman & Wakefield for $100 million last August, but sold for the discounted price on April 3 to a Delaware-based LLC called 19-21 East 64 Holding LLC.
The Real Deal speculated that the a Chinese holding company is behind the purchase, the biggest since the Harkness Mansion sold for $53 million in 2006.
The townhouse — which comes with a grand staircase, an elevator, 20-foot ceilings, a myriad of rooms and offices, and a paneled salon — has been used by the Wildenstein family as both a home and a gallery to display their collections.
The building was designed by architect Horace Trumbauer in 1932.
The nation of Qatar started negotiations to buy it from the Wildenstein family, but backed out of the sale a day before it was scheduled to close on April 29, 2014. The reason was not clear.
The Wildensteins filed a lawsuit against Qatar that year for breach of contract, demanding $9 million in damages, fees and litigations costs. The lawsuit was dropped on May 17, 2016.
Cushman & Wakefield did not return requests for comment on Thursday.
