By E.B. Solomont

When it first hit the market in 2021 for eye-watering $45 million, Monica and Jacob Frydman's riverfront home in the Hudson Valley was lauded as a feat of modern engineering. Known as Ledgerock, the roughly 15,000-square-foot residence hugs the bank of the Hudson River, with a travertine patio that hovers just above the water.

More than three years later, however, the limestone-and-glass house is coming back on the market for $11.25 million, a quarter of the original price. And the Frydmans no longer own it.

Now the seller is an affiliate of Curiam Capital, a New York-based litigation-finance firm that lent about $13.2 million to an entity tied to Jacob in 2019, property records show. The Curiam affiliate took title to the house in September 2024 and is now looking to get the home off its books, said Lauren Bernstein, a Curiam managing director.

"Holding luxury properties is not our business," Bernstein said. "We want someone who would enjoy the property and its views and all the Hudson Valley offers to purchase it."

The Frydmans didn't respond to a request for comment. Jacob, a real-estate developer, has owned commercial properties in New York City and been part of developments in upstate New York and Virginia. He was also chairman and CEO of United Realty Trust, a real-estate investment trust, which was acquired in 2015 by California-based First Capital Real Estate Investments.

Ledgerock is in Hyde Park, N.Y., about 90 miles north of New York City. The Frydmans paid $1.5 million for a 5-acre waterfront parcel in 2005 and over time amassed 10.7 acres of land, property records show.

Completed in 2010, the five-bedroom main house has multiple terraces. Clad in 45,000 square feet of fossilized limestone, the residence has an all-steel superstructure that rests on bedrock. Inside, there are exotic wood and stone finishes along with a concrete stairway. A separate building contains a two-bedroom guesthouse, garage and carwash.

Over the years, Jacob has been involved in an array of legal disputes, many initiated by him. In 2014, he was sued by Ledgerock workers who claimed they hadn't been paid. He also spent years sparring with a former partner, Eli Verschleiser. In 2019, Verschleiser accused Jacob of biting him during a fight in a courthouse elevator, saying he got a rabies shot afterward; Jacob claimed Verschleiser attacked him. Legal disputes between the two are ongoing. "He got some judgments, I got some judgments," said Verschleiser. Jacob has also filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit against the law firm that represented him in the Verschleiser suit. That suit is also ongoing.

Jacob previously told the Journal that the Curiam loan had nothing to do with Ledgerock, but rather litigation involving the sale of United Realty Trust. Bernstein declined to comment on the loan, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

When the house first went on the market, Jacob said the $45 million asking price was warranted by the home's location and its replacement cost, which he estimated was between $1,500 and $2,000 per foot, or $29.7 million to $39.6 million. But Ledgerock's price tag made it an anomaly for the town, where the median sale price was $380,000 in November 2024, up 3% from November 2023, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin. The record for a Dutchess County home sale was set in 2022 with the $18.5 million sale of a 290-acre estate on the border of Red Hook and Rhinebeck by Suzy Welch, wife of the late former General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch.

Listing agent Jason Karadus of Corcoran Country Living said he opposed the $45 million price tag. "I honestly pitched it at $25 million to $28 million," he said.

The house languished on the market for more than a year. In January 2023, the Frydmans planned to sell the estate in a no-reserve auction with Concierge Auctions, but the auction was canceled at the last minute. Concierge "elected to withdraw the property from auction," according to a company spokesperson, who declined to say why. The Frydmans slashed the asking price several times, most recently to $14.5 million, according to Zillow.

In September, the Curiam affiliate took title to the property. The company has since spent several hundred thousand dollars on capital improvements, including a new guesthouse roof, Bernstein said. It also repaired the property's geothermal system and updated the security system.

Located about 9 miles from Rhinebeck, Hyde Park is home to historic estates like the Vanderbilt Mansion. In Millbrook, a village about 17 miles from Hyde Park, heirs to the Mellon banking fortune are currently asking $65 million for a roughly 2,000-acre estate.

The area's luxury market is strong, and Karadus said Jacob had a window of opportunity in 2021 and 2022 to sell it for $18 million to $20 million. "Unfortunately, I think he overshot," Karadus said.

He added that Curiam is pricing the house on the low end to generate buzz, create competition and drive up the price. "That's the goal," he said. "I really do believe that $11.25 million is a bargain."

Write to E.B. Solomont at eb.solomont@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 06, 2025 16:05 ET (21:05 GMT)

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