Jeffrey Epstein’s NYC mansion undergoes construction work more than a year after sale
Work has finally started to gut and renovate the Manhattan mansion where pedophile Jeffrey Epstein abused girls as young as 14.
Former Goldman Sachs banker Michael Daffey bought the seven-story home on East 71st Street – the largest single-family home in Manhattan – last year for $51million, which went to a fund for Epstein’s victims.
And now he is making good on his promise to ‘restore its grandeur from before the Epstein era.’
Building permits attached to the home show they were issued between April 6 and August 2 and all apart from one – for the installation of sprinklers – expire at the end of the year.
They describe the work as ‘renovation of an existing single-family dwelling.’
They added that the work to the lower four floors was to include ‘non-structural demolition and general construction.’
There would be ‘no change to use, egress or occupancy.’
Construction and demolition work has begun at the Manhattan mansion where pedophile Jeffrey Epstein once lived, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show
Behind the green door: A makeshift entrance has now been erected to protect the home’s 15-ft. double oak doors or the seven-story home on Manhattan’s East 71st Street
Epstein, who was found dead in a New York City jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on conspiracy and sex trafficking charges, bought the house from his mentor Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner, allegedly for $1. He is pictured outside the property in early 2019
After Daffey bought the home, his spokesman Stu Loesser told the New York Post: ‘The physical and spiritual rehab of 9 E 71 St. is well underway, but it’s going to take a long time to restore its grandeur from before the Epstein era.
‘When we’re done, it promises to be a home like no other in New York.’
Loesser did not return a call for comment on the ongoing work.
Daffey, 55, bought the mansion overlooking Central Park at a discounted price. It was originally listed for $88million.
Australian former Goldman Sachs banker Michael Daffey, 55, bought the home last year, vowing to give the property a complete makeover – ‘physically and spiritually’
With a sprawling 28,000 square feet over seven floors, the mansion was described in the listing as ‘a once in a life-time opportunity to own the largest single-family home in New York City.’
But its dark past put off many super-wealthy buyers until Daffey came along and snapped it up at less than 60 per cent of the asking price.
The deal still marked one of the most expensive home sales in the Big Apple since the Covid pandemic.
The property was first put on the market for $88million back in July 2020, just under a year after Epstein was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial on a string of sexual abuse charges.
The price was then slashed by $23million to $65million in January 2021.
Australian-born Daffey got a $30.6million loan from Citigroup to buy the Epstein house, Bloomberg reported.
He worked his way up the ranks during a quarter-century career with Goldman’s. His last post was chairman of the hugely profitable global markets division.
He left in March last year when he was appointed chairman of Galaxy Digital Holdings, which the Wall Street Journal calls ‘a bitcoin-focused firm offering banking and institutional services.’
At the time he said: ‘This is a great, new next chapter for me, I have a lot to learn.’
Daffey and his wife Blake, 50, have four children. Before buying the Epstein house they lived in a penthouse of an eight-story building that they had built in the Noho district of Manhattan.
Last year they got $25million for that building, whose tenants have included Will Smith, after asking $29.5million.
Epstein allegedly had secret cameras installed inside the sprawling Upper East Side property to spy on his victims while it was also fitted with unusual décor –including Petrina Ryan-Kleid’s now-infamous painting of Bill Clinton in a dress, called Parsing Bill.
On the second floor Epstein had a mural commissioned of himself in prison with barbed wire, correctional officers not letting him leave.
Building permits for the property describe the work as ‘renovation of an existing single-family dwelling’ and reveal that the work to the lower four floors was to include ‘non-structural demolition and general construction’
Daffey bought the mansion overlooking Central Park at a discounted price. It was originally listed for $88million, then it was slashed to $65million before he bought it for $51million, less than 60% of the original asking price
Public relations specialist R. Couri Hay, who visited the home at Epstein’s invitation told the New York Times that Epstein had told him: ‘That’s me, and I had this painted because there is always the possibility that could be me again.’
Epstein had dozens of other eye-catching pieces in the Manhattan home. A life-size doll hung from a chandelier and he had a chess set on display with many of the pieces dressed suggestively.
Photographs hanging in the home included movie director Woody Allen as well as Mohammed bin Salman, the authoritarian de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.
When police searched the house shortly before Epstein’s death, they seized photographs of naked underage girls.
Epstein bought the house from his mentor Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner, allegedly for $1. Wexner, now 84, had planned to move in but then decided to remain at his base outside Columbus, Ohio.
The house was originally built in the early 1930s for Herbert Strauss, an heir to the Macy’s fortune, whose parents had died on the Titanic.
Strauss commissioned architect Horace Trumbauer to design the 40-room house. Strauss brought antiques and fixtures – and even entire rooms – over from Europe.
But he died of a heart attack in 1933 before he could ever move in.
The 50-foot-wide, 100 feet deep property is considered one of the city’s most prestigious homes, with a vast 28,000 square feet of space spread over seven stories (Image shared by Modlin Group, who were representing the property)
The terrace of Epstein’s former mansion gives an unobstructed view of New York’s Central Park
A strange painting showing a woman with an exposed breast hung on a bookshelf above a desk. The home also featured an array of bizarre décor, including a large stuffed tiger that was placed in an office
A handout photo issued by US Department of Justice during Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial showed the infamous massage room at Epstein’s New York house
Epstein allegedly had secret cameras installed inside the sprawling property to spy on his victims while it was also fitted with unusual décor –including Petrina Ryan-Kleid’s now-infamous painting, Parsing Bill, of Bill Clinton in a dress
The picture of Clinton in a dress hung just inside an exterior door to Epstein’s mansion. Ryan-Kleid may have got her inspiration from a strikingly similar dress worn by Hillary Clinton at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors
It sat empty for a decade before the Roman Catholic Church bought it to become an extension of St. Clair Hospital. Two of Strauss’s French interior rooms were removed and placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The hospital extension opened in 1945 and two elevators were installed so patients could enjoy the rooftop terrace.
When the hospital closed its doors in 1961, the building was converted into a schoolhouse, and only reverted to a private home when Wexner bought it in 1989.
He brought in architect Thierry Despont and interior designer John Stefanidis to convert it back to a private residence and added the seventh floor, but he only lived there for two months before going back to Ohio.
Then in 2011, the home was transferred from Nine East 71st Street Corporation – which was controlled jointly by Wexner and Epstein – to Maple Inc., a Virgin Islands-based business controlled by Epstein alone. Records did not show any money changing hands.
The home has a massive 15-foot-tall oak doors as its main entrance. They were damaged when the FBI raided the home in July 2019. Epstein placed his initials JE next to the door in raised brass. Those letters have since been removed.
It also boasts a large arched ground floor windows and a second-floor balcony.
In 2003 Vanity Fair said as part of a profile on Epstein: ‘The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers.
During the raid, federal authorities reportedly found thousands of graphic photos including of underage girls and a locked safe filled with compact discs labeled as ‘nude girls’
The imposing front doors were damaged when the FBI raided the house in July 2019, shortly before Epstein was found dead in prison as he awaited trial
‘Despite its eccentricity the house is curiously impersonal, the statement of someone who wants to be known for the scale of his possessions,’ Vanity Fair reported in a 2003 Vanity Fair profil
‘Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet … but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior.
‘Despite its eccentricity the house is curiously impersonal, the statement of someone who wants to be known for the scale of his possessions,’ the profile continued.
The magazine said Epstein ‘tells people he bought the house because he knew he ‘could never live anywhere bigger.’
‘He thinks 51,000 square feet is an appropriately large space for someone like himself, who deals mostly in large concepts—especially large sums of money.’
Vanity Fair also described a ‘leather room’ complete with leopard print chairs and a huge painting of a woman holding an opium pipe as she caresses a ‘snarling lionskin.’
There is also an enormous office spanning the entire width of the house which featured a gilded desk that originally belonged to banker J.P. Morgan, and the floor was covered with what Epstein called ‘the largest Persian rug you’ll ever see in a private home.’
Building permits attached to the home show they were issued between April 6 and August 2 and all but one expire at the end of the year
Daffey (pictured with wife Blake) worked his way up the ranks during a quarter-century career with Goldman’s. His last post was chairman of the hugely profitable global markets division.
Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s victims told DailyMail.com last month that he had told her he had bought the home for just $1 from Wexner.
‘He said: ”Maria, I got all this for one dollar.”
‘He held out his arms, spanning the room, and said, ”Look at all of this.”
‘And there are decorators from France coming and going, and you’ve got all this fabulous food, and maids, and everything, it’s just so unbelievable.
‘And I said, ”Why? How did you get it for one dollar?” And he looked at me with the biggest smile, and said, ”Wexner will do anything for me, Maria.”
”’And I mean anything.” Then he winked.’
The Manhattan home was only one of four owned by Epstein. He had the huge Zorro Ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, an oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, an apartment in Paris and Little St. James, his own private island in the Caribbean.
