Prince Jefri’s former Long Island estate on the market again
The purchaser of Prince Jefri of Brunei’s Long Island estate, Sunninghill, is plainly keen to offload it as it is currently for sale for £494,000 ($800,000) less than they paid for it. Perhaps its links to the somewhat colourful royal could be part of the reason.
The house – which is just 26 miles from Manhattan – came to public attention in a 2010 court case Jefri brought against former advisers when he unsuccessfully asked a judge to bar a jury from seeing photographs of pornographic statutes of himself and his former personal assistant and former fiancée, Micha Raines. Created by sculptor J. Seward Johnson Jr., these “sexually graphic works” had been commissioned at a cost £617,000 ($1 million) and were housed at Sunninghill. Of them, Seward Johnson’s spokesman commented:
“The sculptures were a commission specifically featuring positions of the ancient public domain Kama Sutra”.
“Artists’ models were used and there was no reference to any collector, buyer, or other individual in the making of the pieces. The project was commissioned anonymously via a holding company and the sculptor was not told the identity of the buyer”.
The action brought against Jefri’s British lawyers Faith Zaman and her husband Thomas Derbyshire ended after a six week trial when a jury returned a unanimous verdict against the Prince on all but one count. The Prince and the New York Palace Hotel, one of his businesses, were ordered to pay Zaman and Derbyshire £13 million ($21 million) in total in damages.
Built in 1928 to the designs of Roger H. Bullard, Prince Jefri bought Sunninghill in 1998 and kept it largely “empty save for a caretaker (and his ‘X-rated statues’)”. Situated on a plot of 27.88 acres, the 10,000 square foot 16-room “Georgian manor” was restored in 1990 and offers an option for “possible subdivision”.
As well as a 6 bedroomed main house with 8 bathrooms, there is a 3 bedroom cottage, a 2,000 square foot swimming pool with pool house and an 8 car garage. Little sign of Prince Jefri’s tastes remain. Gone are his legendarily famous gold plated hot tubs and gilded loo roll holders.
Sold by the Prince in April 2006 for £7.3 million ($11.8 million), Sunninghill is being marketed by Debra Quinn Petkanas of the Daniel Gale brokerage for just £6.8 million ($11 million) now. It looks like it’s “all gone tits up” for this property.
Update: July 2014: The price has been reduced by £1 million to £5.8 million ($9.9 million). Who said super-prime property prices never collapse?
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Love the reference to his boat at the end. No one seems to have got that yet. Nipples I and Nipples II were the tenders.