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==Interior== |
==Interior== |
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[[Vicky Ward]] visited Epstein at the house for her 2003 profile, "The Talented Mr Epstein", for ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' magazine.<ref name=VF/> Ward wrote that she felt that upon entering the house "you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private [[Shangdu#In popular culture|Xanadu]]. This is no mere rich person's home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries". Rows of 'individually framed eyeballs' manufactured for injured English soldiers decorated the entrance hall along with a 'twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior'. A room described as a "leather room" had [[leopard print]] chairs with walls decorated in 'cordovan-colored fabric'. A large 'Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin' hung on the walls.<ref name=VF/> |
[[Vicky Ward]] visited [[Jeffrey Epstein]] at the house for her 2003 profile, "The Talented Mr Epstein", for ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' magazine.<ref name=VF/> Ward wrote that she felt that upon entering the house "you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private [[Shangdu#In popular culture|Xanadu]]. This is no mere rich person's home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries". Rows of 'individually framed eyeballs' manufactured for injured English soldiers decorated the entrance hall along with a 'twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior'. A room described as a "leather room" had [[leopard print]] chairs with walls decorated in 'cordovan-colored fabric'. A large 'Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin' hung on the walls.<ref name=VF/> |
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A large office spans the width of the house, it was decorated with a large Persian rug alongside '18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets' and a desk that belonged to the banker [[J. P. Morgan]]. A copy of ''[[The Misfortunes of Virtue]]'' by the [[Marquis de Sade]], which tells the tale of the sexually abused 12-year old protagonist of the novel, was on the desk. A Steinway grand piano was surmounted by a stuffed black poodle. Epstein told Ward that "No decorator would ever tell you to do that...But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog".<ref name=VF/> |
A large office spans the width of the house, it was decorated with a large Persian rug alongside '18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets' and a desk that belonged to the banker [[J. P. Morgan]]. A copy of ''[[The Misfortunes of Virtue]]'' by the [[Marquis de Sade]], which tells the tale of the sexually abused 12-year old protagonist of the novel, was on the desk. A Steinway grand piano was surmounted by a stuffed black poodle. Epstein told Ward that "No decorator would ever tell you to do that...But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog".<ref name=VF/> |
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Revision as of 04:13, 12 August 2019
40°46′18″N 73°58′00″W / 40.771604°N 73.9665989°W
The Herbert N. Straus House is a large town house at 9 East 71st Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by Horace Trumbauer and completed in 1932. A roof extension was added in 1977.[1] The size of the house was believed to be 21,000 square feet (2,000 m2) in the late 1980s, and had been enlarged to 51,000 square feet (4,700 m2) in 2003, spread over 9 floors.[2][3] A 15-foot high (4.6 m) oak door and large arched windows are distinctive features of the limestone exterior.[3] The house has a heated sidewalk.[4]
Interior
Vicky Ward visited Jeffrey Epstein at the house for her 2003 profile, "The Talented Mr Epstein", for Vanity Fair magazine.[3] Ward wrote that she felt that upon entering the house "you feel you have stumbled into someone’s private Xanadu. This is no mere rich person's home, but a high-walled, eclectic, imperious fantasy that seems to have no boundaries". Rows of 'individually framed eyeballs' manufactured for injured English soldiers decorated the entrance hall along with a 'twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior'. A room described as a "leather room" had leopard print chairs with walls decorated in 'cordovan-colored fabric'. A large 'Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin' hung on the walls.[3]
A large office spans the width of the house, it was decorated with a large Persian rug alongside '18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets' and a desk that belonged to the banker J. P. Morgan. A copy of The Misfortunes of Virtue by the Marquis de Sade, which tells the tale of the sexually abused 12-year old protagonist of the novel, was on the desk. A Steinway grand piano was surmounted by a stuffed black poodle. Epstein told Ward that "No decorator would ever tell you to do that...But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog".[3]
The French decorator Alberto Pinto was responsible for much of the interior.[3]
History
Herbert Straus, the sixth of seven children born to Isidor and Ida Straus (co-owners of retailers R. H. Macy & Co.), never lived in the house, and work on the house was cancelled shortly before Straus's death in 1933.[1] Straus's heirs never completed the works on the house due to the high cost of property taxes.[5]
The Birch Wathen Lenox School occupied the house until 1989.[1]
The house was bought by the billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner in the 1989 for $13.2 million, who later sold it to Jeffrey Epstein in either 1996 or 2007.[4][2][3]
The house was featured in the December 1995 edition of Architectural Digest.[4] The interior of the house was designed under Wexner by John Stefanidis, and remodelled by the architect Thierry Despont.[4]
Vicky Ward described the house as "the crown jewel of the city's residential town houses...it sits on—or, rather, commands—the block of 71st Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues. Almost ludicrously out of proportion with its four- and five-story neighbors, it seems more like an institution than a house" and that it was believed to be the largest private residence in Manhattan.[3] The house has a bathroom lined in lead with closed-circuit television.[2]
Police and federal authorities entered the house in July 2019 as part of an investigation against Epstein by the Southern District of New York into sex trafficking.[5] The house is valued by federal prosecutors at $77 million; though New York City's Department of Finance assessed its worth at $56 million.[6] The 2008 property tax bill for the Herbert N. Straus House was the fourth highest for a single residence in the city of New York.[6]
References
- ^ a b c Norval White; Elliot Willensky; Fran Leadon (June 9, 2010). AIA Guide to New York City. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 439. ISBN 978-0-19-538386-7.
- ^ a b c Mark David (February 25, 2011). "A Big Deal Goes Down at NYC's Lordly 834 Fifth Avenue". Variety. Retrieved July 7, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Mark David (February 25, 2011). "The Talented Mr. Epstein". Vanity Fair. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Christopher Mason (January 11, 1996). "Home Sweet Elsewhere". New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
- ^ a b "Here's the $77M Mansion the Feds Want to Seize from Jeffrey Epstein". Heavy. July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
- ^ a b Matthew Haag (July 8, 2019). "$56 Million Upper East Side Mansion Where Epstein Allegedly Abused Girls". New York Times. Retrieved July 8, 2019.