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A palatial NYC home got a little boost from a princess to help it sell.
A Manhattan mansion where Grace Kelly allegedly once resided — despite no supporting evidence of her ever living there — has finally sold for $25 million, The Real Deal first reported.
The 35-foot-wide Upper East Side townhouse first went on sale in 2011, for an ambitious $33 million. To help hype the address — 51-53 East 73rd St. — and make it appear worth the price, marketers touted a rumor that the 12,321-square-foot home formerly belonged to the Princess of Monaco and her husband, among other celebrities.
However, the building’s celebrity pedigree is a long-running scam dating back to 2013, The Post reported last year. The property’s then-broker and former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian — also known as “Person 1” and the alleged source for the anti-Trump Steele Dossier — recounted the home’s purported star association to the Daily News.
When reached by The Post, Millian said he was repeating the Kelly story based on what he’d been told by the owner and late real estate manager Paul Ender, who was deep in debt and then seeking $48 million for the deteriorating townhouse.
Since buying the enormous property — the result of two twin 1889 apartment buildings being combined into one in 1947 — Ender treated it like a piggybank, and its mortgage stood at $15.25 million at the end of 2016, public records show.
Other A-listers falsely rumored to have had a history with the address include Harry Belafonte, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and George Soros.
The home has been on the market as part of the Ender family’s bankruptcy proceedings since Feb. 2021. In Aug. 2021, it went to the auction block for a starting bid of $15 million. Then, just before the end of the year, it was purchased by a limited liability company listed as Chai 73 for $10 million over that — $25 million. The sale includes 2,000 square feet of air rights, The Post reported last year.
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