A long-running drama at the former East Hampton mansion of private-school entrepreneur Christopher Whittle could have ended on Tuesday, but something went wrong — like this one stuck in the Distressed estates, as often happens.
The bad break continued as officials gathered for an auction to pay off an $85 million debt on the Georgica estate. They waited and waited for the court-appointed referee, but he never showed up.
The property’s second foreclosure sale in two years, namely The listing price is US$95 millionAccording to creditor Pure East Global Investments Limited, it will be rescheduled.
“We showed up yesterday for the auction to go ahead and stayed over two hours after the scheduled time,” Pure East attorney Robin Muir of Goodwin Procter said in an email.. “However, the referee did not show up (unavailable by phone during this time).”
Referee Cornelius Rogers told real deal He was on his way from Florida to Long Island around the time the auction was scheduled, but the auction was canceled for unknown reasons.
11.2 Acres at 90 and 100 Briar Patch Road, Future Avenues: Founder of The World School Bought in 1989 Sold to the school for $7.3 million in June 2021 — Whittle left the school in 2015 — with a $700,000 credit bid after he borrowed millions from Avenues and didn’t pay it back, dirt report.
As part of the deal, Avenues assumed Whittle’s mortgage on the property to finance his subsequent educational venture, Whittle School & Studios.
At the time of the 2021 auction, an Avenues spokesman said Whittle owed the for-profit school $6.7 million and had not made payments since 2019. Avenues later assigned its interest in the properties to Avenues Landco, LLC.
But the deal didn’t get Whittle off the hook.
Pure East Global Investments Limited provided Whittle with a US$25.4 million business loan and a US$25 million convertible loan to Global Education Investments in 2017, behind the hedge report.
Pure East took Whittle to court in March 2022, and a judge ruled in favor of the lenders in August, court records show.
Referee Rogers calculated Whittle’s loan maturity to be $40.1 million and Global Education Investments’ loan maturity to be $44.6 million. The referee noted that the estate should be sold to help pay the $84.75 million.
The public auction was scheduled to start at 11 a.m. at East Hampton Town Hall.
Although Bespoke has listed the properties, with 10 bedrooms spread across 13,800 square feet and more than 1,550 feet of waterfront, for $95 million, it’s far from certain that the auction will cover both judgments. East Hampton town assessors valued the two lots at just $32 million, according to Behind the Hedge.
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The estate, Shepard Krech House, was listed in 2001 for $45 million and resurfaced in 2014 for $140 million.Whittle’s listings were at one point ranked seventh in the U.S.
A representative for Whittle could not be reached for comment.
