Inman

Seagram liquor fortune heir shells out $35.6M for luxury SoHo pad

Credit: Corcoran Group and Lincoln Avenue Capital

A Seagram liquor fortune heir has purchased a SoHo, New York, condo for a cool $35.625 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Eli Bronfman, the grandson of late billionaire and Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., purchased the unit at 20 Greene Street from Sam Ben-Avraham, who is founder and chief executive of fashion and lifestyle trade show events company Liberty Fairs.

Hannah Bomze and Louis Buckworth of Casa Blanca brokered the deal.

The condo encompasses nearly 7,000 square feet of space across two different floors, according to property data portal PropertyShark. It was sold off-market and features five bedrooms, a media room, a large studio for either home office or gym use and a landscaped roof, The Journal reported.

In addition, the unit’s building, which has an ornamental cast-iron facade, belongs to the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District, as designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973. Bronfman joins cryptocurrency billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss as a resident in the building — although their tenures may not overlap for long, since the Winklevoss twins listed their unit in the building for $16.95 million in April, according to records.

The deal follows a record-breaking penthouse sale in SoHo in November 2021 for $49 million in another affirmation of New York City’s luxury resurgence in the wake of the pandemic.

Bronfman works for the family’s private investment office and also co-founded affordable housing investment firm Lincoln Avenue Capital Management LLC with his brother, Jeremy Bronfman. Edgar Bronfman Sr., who died in 2013, started working at his family’s liquor company at the age of 21 as an apprentice taster and accounting clerk and ultimately climbed the ranks throughout the years to become chairman.

In his role as president of the World Jewish Congress from 1981 to 2007, he is credited with shaping the organization into a more focused entity and pressed for increased rights for Jewish people living in the Soviet Union.

Email Lillian Dickerson