The Kleeberg Residence, a landmarked French renaissance revival mansion in the Upper West Side, was sold at auction.
The property, which was first listed for $40 million, has had several price chops. Concierge Auctions, the firm that auctioned off the property, declined to provide the purchase price. However, Concierge’s Instant Gavel mobile app showed a winning bid of $18.5 million.
If the figure is accurate, it would mean that the 19th century mansion exceeded price estimates. When the auction was first announced last month, Concierge said that they expect the property to sell in the range of $13 million to $16 million.
The property, located at 3 Riverside Drive, was sold as part of Concierge’s “Winter Portfolio Sale.” Concierge said that the event attracted 50 buyers from the US, Canada, South Africa, Russia, England and Singapore.
The new owner inherits a home with an unfortunate history. According to a previous article in the New York Times, the home was built by Philip Kleeberg, a lace merchant and oil broker. He was said to have invented the calculator, which led him to be president of the National Calculator Company. He gave the property to his wife a month before it was completed. She committed suicide in the house in 1903.
The seller is developer Regina Kislin, who spent almost two decades restoring the house. The 10,987 s/f home has eight bedrooms and nine-and-a-half bathrooms. It also contains nine fireplaces, an indoor pool, an elevator, library and four outdoor terraces. Kislin put the property on the auction block under the threat of foreclosure, according to the Wall Street Journal. She and her husband Anatoly Siyagine bought the property for $2.64 million in 1996.
The property was first listed in 2012. Before then, Kislin tried to rent out the mansion for $60,000 per month. Earlier this year, the price for the property went down to $22 million. Meanwhile, a dedicated website for the mansion had an asking price of $18.5 million.
The new owner bought the property at a bargain. Appraisal firm Miller Samuel earlier appraised the property for $29 million.
