What became of Jeffrey Epstein’s $600m property empire?
The billionaire’s homes were the face of luxury that lured so many into his orbit - and where he allegedly abused dozens of under-age girls.
In 2012 Jeffrey Epstein announced in a video deposition: “I’m Jeffrey Edward Epstein and my residence address is 6,100 Red Hook Boulevard in Virgin Islands. I have vacation homes in New Mexico, Palm Beach, New York and Paris.”
The billionaire’s many homes were the face of the luxury living that lured so many people into his orbit. They were also locations where he allegedly abused dozens of under-age girls and young women.
Epstein’s properties featured prominently in this week’s court hearings in which the British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, is facing trial for sex trafficking and other offences. She denies all the charges.
Maxwell has been accused of conspiring to lure and “transport” four teenage girls to the houses in New York, Florida and New Mexico. She was “the lady of the house”, the prosecution said, enforcing a “culture of silence” in the properties and “running” them on a daily basis.
After the suicide of the disgraced financier in August 2019, managers of his $US600 million estate put up the property portfolio for sale. Most of the houses have been sold, with part of the proceeds going to victims through a compensation fund.
Maxwell, meanwhile, has sold her London flat - where a photograph was taken of the Duke of York [Prince Andrew] with Virginia Giuffre (nee Roberts), one of her accusers - to raise money for her legal fees.
Here is what has happened to the properties.
9 East 71st Street, New York
With 40 rooms, this seven-storey townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side is one of the largest private homes in Manhattan.
The French neoclassical building, previously a school, was bought by Les Wexner, the billionaire owner of Victoria’s Secret, for a record $US13.2 million in 1989. Wexner filled the house with art, including paintings by Picasso, as well as antiques, but reportedly never moved in. Seven years later the billionaire “gifted” it to Epstein, according to The New York Times. The “house of horrors”, as it was called in the American tabloids, was sold to a former Goldman Sachs executive in March for $US51 million.
358 El Brillo Way, Palm Beach, Florida
The palm-bordered waterfront villa was designed by the architect John Volk in the 1950s. Epstein bought it for $US2.5 million in 1990 and spent most of the following two decades at the property, until he was arrested and convicted for sex trafficking and procuring an underage girl for prostitution in 2008. The six-bedroom house, with a large swimming pool, was sold to a local property developer, Todd Michael Glaser, for $US18.5 million last year. He demolished it, then listed the plot for $US29 million. It was reportedly bought by the venture capitalist David Skok for $US26 million last month.
22 Avenue Foch, Paris
When Epstein started visiting Paris in the 1990s he was initially staying at the five-star hotel Le Bristol, near the Champs Elysees. It was only in 2001 that he settled at this large apartment, in the chic 16th arrondissement, which he bought for €3.5 million. The next year he tried to buy another flat in the same block for €2.2 million but was outbid by a Saudi royal. Decorated by the interior designer Alberto Pinto, the apartment has five-metre high ceilings and is filled with art. It has 18 rooms, including eight bedrooms, a study and a gym. It is listed for sale with Sotheby’s Proprietes Parisiennes for €11.9 million.
Zorro Ranch, New Mexico
This 8,000-acre ranch, with an air strip and helipad, sits 35 miles from Santa Fe and was bought by Epstein in 1993. The main three-storey, four bedroom house was also decorated by Pinto and has an indoor pool. Epstein visited the ranch once or twice a year. There are four private residences, with other structures at the compound including a greenhouse, firehouse, barn, seven-bay heated garage, lodge, log cabin, yurt and an additional guesthouse. It is listed with Sotheby’s Realty for $US27.5 million.
Great St James and Little St James
Following his arrest and the 13 months he spent in jail in 2008, Epstein started spending more time on his private island in the US Virgin Islands. He bought the first island, Little St James, for $US8 million in 1998. Shortly before his arrest in Miami, in 2007, he started building multiple structures, including a desalination system and a golden-domed temple, as revealed by drone footage posted on YouTube after his death. There he had complete privacy; he travelled by helicopter and private jet and had a staff of about 70. Locals referred to Little St James as “Paedophile Island”. In 2019, the island was valued at $US63 million. After Epstein’s death it emerged he had bought the 165-acre neighbouring Great St James, for $US22.5 million. He purchased it through an offshore company after the island’s previous owner refused to sell it to Epstein owing to his reputation as a sex offender. The islands are at the centre of a legal battle between the government of the Virgin Islands, which is seeking control of them, and Epstein’s executors, who want to sell them.
44 Kinnerton Street, London
(Ghislaine Maxwell’s house)
The three-storey, two-bedroom mews house sits behind Hyde Park and is less than ten minutes from Harrods. Maxwell bought it for £290,000 in 1997 and has called it her “refuge”. It is there that Virginia Giuffre, now 38, claims Prince Andrew sexually abused her when she was 17, which he unequivocally denies.
Earlier this year, weeks after Maxwell agreed an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in a defamation case, it was revealed that Maxwell used one of her husband’s companies to take out a £2 million mortgage against the house. In 2016 she sold her dollars 15 million house in New York’s Upper East Side, as she struck confidential settlements with two women who said they were sexually exploited by Epstein. Maxwell was arrested by the FBI last year at a $US1 million house in Bradford, New Hampshire, which was also bought by a company connected to her husband, Scott Borgerson. In August she sold the house in London to a developer for £1.75 million.
The Times
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