Qatar’s $41M Upper East Side townhouse will serve as maids’ housing: report

The lavish Upper East Side townhouse at 12 East 73rd Street hit the market in June 2016 for $42.5 million, sporting an impressive gut renovation commissioned by owner and real estate billionaire Andrew Farkas. It wasn’t long before the townhouse between Fifth and Madison avenues found a buyer: The sale closed in late January 2017 in an off-market deal to the anonymous 12e73rd LLC. The New York Post now claims it knows the buyer behind the sale, and the absurd reason for the purchase.

According to the Post, the country of Qatar is the new owner of the 10,400-square-foot house. The Middle Eastern country dropped $41 million on the digs, impressively renovated within the last decade by Daniel Romualdez, the interior designer behind SOM’s 252 East 57th Street and Robert A.M. Stern’s 70 Vestry, in a no-expense-spared renovation.

A source tells the Post that the lavish townhouse will be used as maids’ quarters for Qatar’s adjacent property at 7-9 East 72nd Street. The country purchased the two adjacent 72nd Street townhouses from Lycée Français in 2002 for $26 million, following the posh private school's move to a new building. The two landmarked townhouses underwent a megamansion conversion bringing it an indoor swimming pool, two floors of bedrooms and an 8,500-square-foot rooftop outdoor space.

The Post speculates that Qatar’s Princess Sheikha Mayassa Bint Hamad Al Thani, who is an avid art collector, lived in the roughly 45,000-square-foot house.

Corcoran

12 East 73rd Street

• Qatar buys townhouse just for the maids [NYP]
• After Gut Renovation, Lavish Upper East Side Townhouse Wants $42.5M [Curbed]
• Renovated Mega-Mansion Ready to Rule the Upper East Side [Curbed]