--- category: Landmark created: 2026-06-20 location: New York, New York summary: Seven-story limestone townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side that served as Jeffrey Epstein's primary New York residence and the site of conduct detailed in the federal sex-trafficking case against him. tags: - Place - JeffreyEpstein - Manhattan - Property - SexTrafficking - LesWexner - UpperEastSide - MapleInc updated: 2026-06-20 --- The townhouse at 9 East 71st Street stands on the north side of the block between Fifth and Madison Avenues on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Built as the Herbert N. Straus mansion in the early 1930s, the roughly 21,000-square-foot limestone residence ranked among the largest single-family houses in New York City and became the primary New York base of [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) from the early 1990s until his 2019 arrest.[^1] ### The Straus Mansion Herbert Nathan Straus, an heir to the R. H. Macy & Co. department-store fortune and a son of Isidor Straus and Ida Straus, who died in the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, bought the lot in 1928 and commissioned the Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to design a French neoclassical mansion.[^2] Construction began at the end of the 1920s, and Straus imported eighteenth-century European rooms and fixtures for the interior.[^2] The stock-market crash of October 1929 disrupted the project, and Straus halted work in 1931 with the house roughly ninety percent complete after spending about 600,000 dollars.[^2] Straus remained at his Park Avenue apartment and died in 1933 without ever living in the unfinished mansion.[^2] His heirs left the structure vacant for more than a decade while property-tax obligations accumulated.[^2] The house later passed through institutional and residential uses before returning to private ownership, and by the late 1980s the seven-story building was measured at about 21,000 square feet on a lot fifty feet wide.[^1] The exterior was finished in limestone in the French neoclassical manner, set off by a fifteen-foot oak entrance door and tall arched windows, and the residence stood out of scale with its four- and five-story neighbors.[^3] A 2003 Vanity Fair profile of the interior described the residence as among the city's grandest townhouses and recorded unusual furnishings, including framed prosthetic eyeballs that the account said had been manufactured in England for injured soldiers and a life-size sculpture of a naked warrior.[^3] ### Wexner Purchase and Transfer to Epstein [Leslie Wexner](/people/leslie-wexner/), the founder of The Limited and L Brands, purchased the townhouse in 1989 for about 13.2 million dollars, and control of the property then moved through a chain of corporate entities during the 1990s with Epstein listed in various officer or trustee roles.[^4] Epstein, who held a sweeping power of attorney over Wexner's finances granted in 1991, used the house as his Manhattan residence while title remained with Wexner-linked entities.[^4] In 2011 the mansion was conveyed to Maple Inc., an Epstein-linked U.S. Virgin Islands entity, for zero dollars in recorded consideration, with Epstein signing the transaction for both the seller and the buyer.[^4] Reporting at the time valued the property in the tens of millions of dollars, and the terms were never fully explained publicly.[^4] An FBI internal memo released in 2026 stated that Epstein "controlled all of Wexner's personal finances with virtually no oversight" and described his sale to himself of a New York home that had belonged to Wexner at a discounted price; the financial mechanics of that transfer are detailed on the Leslie Wexner page.[^5] Epstein listed Manhattan as his residence in legal filings, and the townhouse functioned as the hub of his New York operations, with staff, a large household and the art and furnishings later catalogued during the federal search.[^1] ### Interior Accounts and Surveillance Court testimony, photographs entered as evidence and journalistic accounts described an interior filled with framed photographs of women and girls, including images displayed in the stairwells and private rooms.[^6] Witnesses and reporters described a chessboard whose pieces were dressed to resemble Epstein's staff, a life-size hanging female doll, a mural depicting a prison yard and a painting that appeared to depict Bill Clinton.[^3] Investigators who searched the house in 2019 reported finding hidden cameras positioned to monitor bedrooms and bathrooms, and photographs of partially nude and apparently underage females were recovered from multiple rooms.[^6] Compact discs and hard drives containing images were found in plastic bins and drawers distributed throughout the residence.[^7] Several women who later gave testimony in civil suits and in the prosecution of [Ghislaine Maxwell](/people/ghislaine-maxwell/) described being brought to the townhouse as minors or young adults and directed to upstairs massage rooms, accounts that form part of the body of allegations against Epstein and his associates rather than adjudicated findings as to this address.[^6] Maxwell was convicted in December 2021 of sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges arising from conduct that prosecutors said occurred at Epstein's residences, including the New York townhouse.[^6] ### The July 2019 Federal Search Federal agents executed a search warrant at 9 East 71st Street on the evening of July 6, 2019, the day Epstein was arrested at Teterboro Airport, and continued into July 7.[^7] An FBI team from a child-exploitation and human-trafficking task force forced entry when no one answered, and agents located a locked safe in a fifth-floor dressing area, which they opened with a saw; the supervising agent later testified that "we brought a saw."[^7] Prosecutors said the safe held about 70,000 dollars in cash, dozens of loose diamonds, compact discs, hard drives and an expired foreign passport.[^8] The passport had been issued by Austria in 1982, was valid until 1987 and bore a photograph of Epstein under the name Marius Robert Fortelni, listing an occupation of "manager" and a residence in Dammam, Saudi Arabia; its pages carried entry stamps for France, England and Saudi Arabia from the early 1980s.[^9] Prosecutors cited the diamonds, the cash and the false passport at Epstein's bail hearing as evidence that he had the means and intent to flee, and Judge Richard Berman denied bail.[^8] Epstein's defense lawyers said the passport had been given to him by a friend decades earlier for personal protection during travel, asserting that some Jewish Americans had been advised to carry identification bearing a non-Jewish name when traveling internationally during a period of hijacking risk, and that Epstein never used it to clear immigration.[^9] Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell on August 10, 2019, and the ruling was suicide.[^1] ### Post-Death Sale After Epstein's death the townhouse was placed on the market by his estate, listed in 2020 at 88 million dollars, a price that was cut by 23 million dollars to 65 million dollars in January 2021.[^10] In March 2021 the mansion sold for 51 million dollars to Michael Daffey, a former Goldman Sachs executive who had managed hedge-fund clients for the bank and was retiring from its global-markets division.[^10] A spokesman said Daffey financed the purchase with cash and a bridge loan, and the proceeds went to Epstein's estate, which had established a fund to compensate his alleged victims.[^10] Coverage placed the building at about 19,000 to 28,000 square feet across seven stories with roughly forty rooms, the wide variance reflecting differing measurements of the much-altered house over the decades.[^10] The sale closed the chain of ownership that ran from the Straus heirs through the mid-century institutional uses to Wexner, to the Epstein-controlled Maple Inc. entity, and finally to a private buyer who paid roughly 1,800 dollars per square foot.[^10] The fund established from the estate's assets, including the proceeds of this and the Palm Beach sale, processed claims from women who said they had been abused at Epstein's properties.[^10] [^1]: For the townhouse as Epstein's primary New York residence, the approximately 21,000-square-foot late-1980s measurement, and the timeline through his July 2019 arrest and August 10, 2019 death, see the contemporaneous press (Associated Press, *New York Times,* CNBC). [^2]: "The 1933 Herbert Straus Mansion, No. 9 East 71st Street," *Daytonian in Manhattan,* on Herbert N. Straus as a Macy's heir and son of Isidor and Ida Straus, his 1928 purchase of the lot, the commission to Horace Trumbauer, the imported European rooms, the 1929 crash, the 1931 halt at roughly ninety percent completion after about 600,000 dollars, and his 1933 death without occupying the house. http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-1933-herbert-straus-mansion-no-9.html [^3]: "A Scandal in Stone: The Infamous Epstein Townhouse," *East Side Feed,* summarizing the 2003 Vanity Fair profile of the interior (the fifteen-foot oak door, arched windows, framed prosthetic eyeballs and naked-warrior sculpture) and the artwork later observed during the FBI search. https://eastsidefeed.com/real-estate/a-scandal-in-stone-the-infamous-epstein-townhouse/ [^4]: "What the Records Show: The Townhouses on East 71st Street," summarizing NYC ACRIS deed records and 2019 reporting on Leslie Wexner's 1989 purchase for about 13.2 million dollars and the 2011 zero-dollar transfer to Maple Inc. signed by Epstein for both sides. https://www.habituallychic.luxury/2020/07/a-look-inside-9-east-71st-street/ [^5]: "FBI memos, bank record, odd emails mention Wexner in new Epstein files," *AOL,* 2026, quoting the FBI memo that Epstein "controlled all of Wexner's personal finances with virtually no oversight" and describing his discounted sale to himself of a Wexner home and aircraft. https://www.aol.com/articles/les-wexner-appears-latest-epstein-171239980.html [^6]: Trial coverage of United States v. Ghislaine Maxwell (S.D.N.Y. 2021), on the December 2021 conviction and on victim testimony describing the New York townhouse, the displayed photographs and the upstairs massage rooms; abuse described at this address is testimony and allegation. https://www.foxnews.com/us/ghislaine-maxwell-trial-epstein-nude-photos-evidence-tape [^7]: "'We brought a saw': FBI found diamonds, cash, passports, CDs and hard drives after cracking open safe in 2019 raid on Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse," *inkl,* on the July 6 to 7, 2019 search, the fifth-floor safe, the sawing open, the agent's testimony, and the CDs and hard drives found throughout the house. https://www.inkl.com/news/we-brought-a-saw-fbi-found-diamonds-cash-passports-cds-and-hard-drives-after-cracking-open-safe-in-2019-raid-on-epstein-s-upper-east-side-townhouse [^8]: "Epstein's safe had 'piles of cash' and a fake passport, prosecutors say," *Seattle Times / Associated Press,* 2019, on the roughly 70,000 dollars in cash, the diamonds, the expired foreign passport cited at the bail hearing, and Judge Richard Berman's denial of bail. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/epsteins-safe-had-piles-of-cash-and-a-fake-passport-prosecutors-ssay/ [^9]: "Jeffrey Epstein's Fake Foreign Passport Was Used in Saudi Arabia and Other Countries," *The Daily Beast,* 2019, on the Austrian passport issued in 1982 and valid until 1987 in the name Marius Robert Fortelni, the Dammam, Saudi Arabia residence, the early-1980s entry stamps for France, England and Saudi Arabia, and the defense's personal-protection explanation. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-fake-foreign-passport-was-used-in-saudi-arabia-and-other-countries/ [^10]: "Former Goldman Sachs exec is mystery buyer of $51 million Jeffrey Epstein mansion, boosting victim fund," *CNBC,* 2021, and "Former Goldman Exec Behind Epstein Townhouse Buy," *The Real Deal,* 2021, on the 88 million dollar listing, the January 2021 cut to 65 million dollars, the March 2021 sale to Michael Daffey for 51 million dollars financed with cash and a bridge loan, the proceeds going to the estate's victim fund, and the square-footage and room figures. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/16/goldman-sachs-exec-daffey-buys-jeffrey-epstein-mansion-in-new-york.html