Marisa Noel Brown Prays for a Miracle on East 78th
Marisa Noel Brown, the daughter of disgraced hedge funder Walter Noel, and her husband, Matt, may be looking to extricate themselves from their lavish Upper East Side townhouse. Marisa and Matt (who worked for his father-in-law's Fairfield Greenwich Group before Bernie Madoff came along) purchased the home at 12 East 78th Street for $13.5 million in 2008. They took out a hefy $9 million mortgage to do it, and have since spent millions more renovating the townhouse with its "pale gleaming Indiana limestone" facade. (The inside now has much more "open space" and a "lot of light.")
But now Matt is unemployed (and unemployable), Marisa's father's career is over, and Walter faces years of lawsuits over the $7.5 billion he blew by investing with Bernie, it's likely the townhouse will hit the market in the near future. Max Abelson of the Observer quotes a source who says the Browns are currently "thinking" of selling it, but have yet to come to a final decision. We're not sure there's much to think about. Unless Marisa has an ace up her sleeve—a sale of her massive Louis Vuitton collection on her stoop, perhaps?—we give it a month for the couple to start looking at $2,500-a-month rentals on Second Avenue.
Picture-Perfect Madoff Casualties Selling 'Gleaming' Townhouse? [NYO]