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Step inside the Gilded Age mansion that just sold for $34.5 million after years in bankruptcy

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Step inside the Gilded Age mansion that just sold for $34.5 million after years in bankruptcy

The drawing room of the House of Cassini mansion in New York City.
The drawing room of the House of Cassini mansion in New York City.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

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  • Bidding has closed on a 1901 mansion where Oleg Cassini designed fashions for Jacqueline Onassis.
  • On Wednesday, a bankruptcy judge approved a $34.5 million top bid for the Gilded Age townhouse.
  • Look inside the Beaux-Arts beauty and read about its contentious, sometimes violent history.

A 20-room Gilded Age mansion, once the atelier of fashion designer Oleg Cassini, is under contract at a bargain discount: $34.5 million.

A federal bankruptcy judge signed off on the mystery buyer's winning bid on Wednesday, approving a price tag for the 18,000-square-foot Manhattan townhouse that's nearly half the original asking price of two years ago.

The bankruptcy โ€” in which two octogenarian sisters, one of them Cassini's widow, were forcibly removed from the home by federal Marshals โ€” caps a history of transformation.

Built steps from Fifth Avenue's "Millionaire's Row" as a stockbroker's statement mansion in 1901, the stately limestone home was subdivided into apartments throughout the '60s and '70s.

And before his death in 2006, Cassini sketched wardrobes for longtime client Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by the light of a towering window spanning the six-story home's two topmost floors.

As the new buyer prepares to move in as early as next month, let's take a look at the stunning rooms and tumultuous history of 15 East 63rd Street.

The 125-year history of the House of Cassini begins and ends with unwelcome intrusions.
The limestone facade of the House of Cassini, a 1901 Gilded Age mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
The limestone facade of the House of Cassini, a 1901 Gilded Age mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

For all its serene style, the story of the House of Cassini begins and ends with a violent forced entry.

Its first owner, a millionaire broker and banker, was bludgeoned and robbed by armed burglars who broke in soon after his Beaux-Arts beauty was built.

A century later, its most recent owner โ€” Cassini's 85-year-old sister-in-law, Peggy Nestor โ€” would be physically pulled from the home by federal Marshals, who busted open the brass front door to enforce a bankruptcy judge's 2024 eviction order.

"They put me on the street in a robe!" Cassini's widow, Marianne Cassini, also in her 80s, told the judge of being evicted along with her sister and their niece.

The sisters battled in the courts for a decade to manage rising debts.
A fireplace mantle featured a photo of fashion designer Oleg Cassini with longtime client Jacqueline Kennedy from back in her days as First Lady.
A fireplace mantle featured a photo of fashion designer Oleg Cassini with longtime client Jacqueline Kennedy when she was First Lady.

Evan Joseph

For the past decade, the two sisters have battled in state and federal court to keep the home they purchased together in 1984, 12 years after Marianne's secret marriage to the designer (the union was revealed only after Cassini's death). Nestor, Cassini's sister-in-law, took sole title in 2016, according to court papers.

The sisters ultimately lost their battle against the eviction and the bankruptcy judge's final 2024 order that the home be sold to satisfy more than $30 million of Nestor's mortgage debts and liens.

"Enough, enough, enough โ€” we're done," a frustrated-sounding Judge Michael E. Wiles told the protesting sisters in approving the sale at a hearing on Wednesday.

"It's in the court file, for heaven's sake," Wiles said, rejecting the pair's repeated claim that they remain co-owners and that rent-stabilization laws somehow bar their eviction from the single-family residence.

In the two years since the eviction, the home's sale price had plummeted โ€” from $65 million under Sotheby's International Realty, to $39.5 million under its latest listing with Brown Harris Stevens, to the current $34.5 million purchase agreement.

First stop on our look inside: an ornate and unusual vestibule.
The House of Cassini entryway features an unusual vestibule of marble, brass and curved glass.
The House of Cassini entryway features an unusual vestibule of marble, brass and curved glass.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

Before diving into the home's tumultuous history and tranquil interior, it's worth pausing at the front door, where the original vestibule still greets visiting guests.

Built of curving marble, brass, and glass, the unusual structure served as an airlock โ€” a buffer against the cold in a home warmed by 14 fireplaces.

Marble, glass, and brass bend together to frame the vestibule.
A closeup of the Cassini mansion vestibule shows its unusual, turn-of-the-century curve of marble, brass and glass.
A closeup of the Cassini mansion vestibule shows its unusual, turn-of-the-century curve of marble, brass and glass.

Evan Joseph

In the summer, the vestibule helps keep in the central air conditioning, a much later and controversial addition.

In 2006, next-door-neighbor Neil Diamond sued Nestor, saying her new rooftop cooling unit illegally added 13 feet to the height of her building.

The "Sweet Caroline" and "Song Sung Blue" singer sought $2 million in damages for the obstruction of views from his terrace. They settled for an undisclosed sum in 2010.

The 1901 mansion was a wealthy stockbroker's statement home, steps from Manhattan's "Millionaire's Row."
The first floor boasts white marble floors and a sweeping marble staircase.
The first floor has white marble floors and a sweeping marble staircase.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

The home's story begins with Wall Street stockbroker Elias Asiel, who purchased 15 East 63rd Street in 1885 as a new Victorian brownstone.

Asiel had grander plans. He hired one of the top architects of the day, John H. Duncan, to reimagine the 25-foot-wide property as a limestone-clad mansion to rival any on the nearby stretch of Fifth Avenue known as "Millionaire's Row."

Duncan had just finished the General Grant National Memorial โ€” a mausoleum for the 17th president and Civil War hero, overlooking the Hudson River โ€” when he went to work for Asiel in 1897.

Entering Duncan's design tour-de-force, guests can cross a 46-foot, marble-tiled gallery to an oval-shaped dining room, or climb a sweeping, curved staircase to the parlor level.

The dining room was the first stop for a pair of burglars in a 1906 break-in.
This view of the House of Cassini's dining room shows its stunning mirrors and the toll taken by time upon the carved wood paneling.
This view of the House of Cassini's dining room shows its stunning mirrors and the toll time has taken on the carved wood paneling.

Evan Joseph

The dining room, enclosed by pocket doors, mirrors, and fading, carved wood paneling, played a role in a 1906 break-in that left Asiel bloodied and bereft of his silverware.

The pre-dawn, gunpoint robbery was front-page news. "Elias Asiel Pounded Insensible with Brass Knuckles in Bedroom," blared a headline in the evening edition of the Sun.

According to accounts in four city newspapers, the two robbers broke into the basement service door with a saw and a diamond glass-cutting blade.

Awakened upstairs in bed, Asiel was no easy mark.

He got in a good punch or two before being beaten with brass knuckles and bound at the wrists and ankles "with stout pieces of cord."

He also refused to give up the combination to his safe, which contained "a fortune in gems" โ€” heirloom jewelry he would bequeath to his daughter, asleep one floor up.

Struggling free in his bedroom, Asiel cut short the robbery.
The sitting room adjoining the mansion's master bedroom, site of a violent struggle a century ago.
The sitting room adjoining the mansion's master bedroom, site of a violent struggle a century ago.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

"Would one of you please wipe the blood out of my eyes?" the trussed broker asked as the pair ransacked his bedroom.

The younger burglar paused to wet a cloth in the adjoining bathroom and gently wiped Asiel's eyes, an act of kindness that later swayed a judge to impose a mere five-year sentence.

The robbers pocketed Asiel's $250 gold watch, 12 of his pearl-and-sapphire scarf pins, and $90 in cash. They then headed back downstairs to the dining room, where they'd left Asiel's silver in a pile to grab on the way out.

The two managed to pack up just three dozen forks and four dozen spoons when they were interrupted. Wriggling free of his ties, Asiel pulled a bedside bell cord to wake the seven sleeping servants, and was shouting for help out the window.

The thieves fled into nearby Central Park, leaving most of the silver on the sideboard. They were caught and convicted some two years later.

On the second floor โ€” a library and drawing room.
This view of the Cassini mansion's second floor library shows its wood and marble paneling and one of two windows overlooking 63rd Street.
The Cassini mansion's library overlooks 63rd Street.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

The mansion's two most exquisite spaces โ€” a wood-clad library and a bright drawing room โ€” are at either end of the mansion's second level, the "parlor floor," where the ceilings are 17 feet high.

The wood and marble-clad library faces the front of the building, its two tall arching windows overlooking leafy East 63rd Street.

The library's ceiling is the nesting site of four pairs of winged and clever cherubs.
This photo shows the ceiling of the Cassini mansion's library, where owls stand watch and pairs of winged cherubs gazing upon Latin-inscribed scrolls.
The library's ceilings are populated by watchful owls and pairs of winged cherubs gazing upon Latin-inscribed scrolls. No bookshelves, though.

Evan Joseph/Sotheby's International Realty

Photos of the library show no bookshelves. But there is reading material, if you're a cherub.

Pairs of the erudite tykes roost in each corner of the elaborately coffered ceiling, holding scrolls enscribed in Latin.

"Malo Esse Quam Videri," reads one, paraphrasing Cicero โ€” "I would rather be than seem."

The drawing room is a bright sanctuary.
The House of Cassini's second floor drawing room looks like a wedding cake, frosted with garlands and roses.
The House of Cassini's drawing room looks like a wedding cake, frosted with garlands and roses.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

The second-floor drawing room is a bright sanctuary where sunlight from the terrace floods inside through two French doors and alights mirror to mirror.

The room resembles an intricate wedding cake, frosted with garlands of roses.
Garlands of plasterwork roses ring the second floor's sunny drawing room.
Garlands of plasterwork roses ring the second floor's sunny drawing room.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

A profusion of plasterwork decorates the ceiling and walls, ringing the space in garlands of budding and full-flower blooms.

The effect is like standing inside a wedding cake, under a rose bower, and enclosed by a house of mirrors all at once.

"Elegance upon elegance upon elegance," Louise Beit, the mansion's previous broker, enthused of the drawing room, in a YouTube tour of the home last year.

A spacious gallery connects the library and drawing room, and features a balcony for "string quartets" to perform.
The Cassini mansion's second floor gallery connects the library and the drawing room.
The Cassini mansion's second-floor gallery connects the library and the drawing room.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

A spacious gallery connects the second floor's library and drawing room.

"Standing here in the gallery, you can feel how they love lavish entertaining in the Gilded Age," said Beit, of Sotheby's International Realty.

"You can greet your guests at the top of the steps with a string quartet entertaining you from the balcony."

Asiel died in his bedroom in 1920, at age 69.
Another view of the Cassini mansion library shows light from East 63rd street streaming in through a pair of tall, arched windows.
Another view of the Cassini mansion library shows light from East 63rd street streaming in through a pair of tall, arched windows.

Evan Joseph for Sotheby's International Realty

Asiel and his two children โ€” his daughter would marry a Bloomingdale โ€” enjoyed the mansion through the nineteen-teens.

In 1920, a year after his retirement, the broker died at home at age 69, missing the stock market crash by nine years.

The robbery was his most lasting claim to fame. His obituary in The New York Times noted that he "gained high praise from the police for his coolness and bravery in a single-handed battle with two burglars."

In the '60s and '70s, the home was divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.
The sweeping staircase of the House of Cassini spirals up toward its added sixth floor and skylight.
The sweeping staircase of the House of Cassini spirals up toward its added sixth floor and skylight.

Evan Joseph

City records show that in the '60s and '70s, the home was owned by a California development company and had been divided into seven rent-stabilized apartments.

In 1984, it was purchased by Nestor and Marianne Cassini, the designer's secret wife.

The sisters spent the next 30 years taking out mortgages, renovating, evicting the old tenants, and running the designer's businesses โ€” Oleg Cassini, Inc. and Cassini Parfums, Ltd., both in receivership since 2015.

The winning, anonymous bidder pledged $34.5 million and may need to spend many millions more to renovate.
The front entrance to the Cassini mansion.
The mystery buyer's architect estimates that renovating the home will cost $25 million and take three to four years.

Evan Joseph

The next owner โ€” named only as "15 East 63rd Street, LLC" in court papers โ€” is now poised to inherit an architectural gem, rich in history and potential.

"It appears that it has been a significant number of years since the townhouse was last comprehensively renovated," Brown Harris Stevens broker Sami Hassoumi said in a court document on Tuesday.

The mystery buyer's architect estimates that fully renovating the home will cost $25 million and take three to four years, Hassoumi said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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