A 17-room New York City mansion formerly owned by Italian designer Gianni Versace is coming on the market for $70 million.
Mr. Versace, who started the Versace fashion house in 1978, bought the townhouse for $7.5 million in 1995; the next year, the Versaces opened a five-story boutique on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. He was famously murdered outside his Miami estate in 1997. Gianni Versace in 1993.
The sellers are Swedish hedge-fund manager Thomas Sandell, 61, and his wife, Ximena Sandell, 46. They have owned the limestone townhouse since 2005, when they paid $30 million to buy it from the Versace family, records show.
The 35-foot-wide Neoclassical mansion, located on East 64th Street just steps from Central Park, spans six floors and about 14,200 square feet. On the bottom four levels, the home retains many of the Italian Baroque-style finishes put in place by Mr. Versace: marble floors, classical columns, mosaic and Austrian parquet floors and painted ceilings and walls. Many of those features have been restored by the Sandells, according to Nikki Field of Sotheby’s International Realty, who is co-listing the property with her daughter, Amanda Field Jordan.
The upper two floors have been redesigned. The fifth floor has a Moroccan-style media room and a whimsical game room with billiards and arcade games, Ms. Field said. “We pursued extensive restorations and renovations with an incredible team of artists and artisans honoring the magnificent legacy left by Gianni Versace,” the Sandells said in a statement. Ms. Field noted the intricacy of the home’s design elements. The ceiling of the great room features restored 19 th -century panels sourced by Mr. Versace from a Florentine palazzo, according to the listing agents. A marble reception hall leads to vast entertaining rooms with French-style windows overlooking a trellised garden below. A rear balcony, which runs the full length of the house, also looks over the garden. The property is filled with Italian Baroque detail.
The house could be configured with up to nine bedrooms.“It’s like going into the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ of Gianni Versace,” Ms. Field said, noting that the Sandells are “Versace devotees. ”The property also has a roof deck with a gazebo, according to the listing agents. The Sandells “have been custodians of this piece of art,” Ms. Field said of the townhouse. “It’s going to be purchased by someone who has that same reverence.” The property has been on the market as a rental in recent years, when the Sandells had temporarily relocated, Ms. Field said. At one point it was asking $100,000 a month.
