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The most expensive townhouse ever sold on the Upper West Side may not stay sold for long. A name has surfaced in the property records behind last month’s $45 million deal, the broker who worked the buy side is disputing it, and the plan she describes would put the house back up for sale within a few months.
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The buyer of 48-50 West 69th Street, the double-wide mega-mansion between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, appears to be an entity connected to Brendan Blumer, chief executive of the crypto company Block.one, according to The Real Deal. Property records reviewed by the outlet show that a tax refund tied to the $45 million sale was issued to an address in the Cayman Islands linked to Block.one. The company was behind a $4 billion token issuance in 2017, meaning it raised that money by selling its own newly created digital currency to investors, a sale that drew heavy criticism at the time.Compass’ Maggie Wu, who worked the buy side of the townhouse deal, denied that Blumer was the buyer, The Real Deal reports. She said the house was purchased by an investor who intends to do a light renovation and put it back on the market later this fall.
If that holds, the block gets another round of contractors and another listing campaign for a property it has already lived through plenty with. Pierre Bastid, a French businessman, and jazz singer Malou Beauvoir bought the two original townhouses for a combined $24.5 million in 2011 and 2012, then tore them down in 2018. What followed was years of dust, fumes, noise and dead plants, including a dig that went nearly 38 feet underground to make room for a giant private pool. A contractor at the site was later hit with a $15,000 fine over a worker’s fall. The couple, who have since divorced, listed the finished house for $85 million in March 2024 without ever living in it, pulled it from the public market months later, signed a contract in May that was the priciest in Manhattan that week, and closed in July at nearly 50 percent off the ask. It still set a neighborhood record, topping the previous mark held by 248 Central Park West in 2022.
The LLC behind the purchase, MI 8787, has been busy elsewhere. It bought a 4,500-square-foot penthouse at 505 West 19th Street in Chelsea for $21 million in January, a three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit with a 3,400-square-foot rooftop and a deeded parking space. In 2024, it paid $40 million for a waterfront spec mansion at 40 Palm Avenue in Miami Beach, a record for Palm Island, then flipped it off-market to gaming entrepreneur Richard Skelhorn for $45 million.
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Blumer has also been linked to a much larger trade overseas. An Italian newspaper reported in March 2025 that he paid $172 million for a 28-room villa in Sardinia, the most expensive home sale in Italy’s history. The estate covers 5.7 acres with more than 1,000 feet of frontage on Romazzino Bay and access to two private beaches, and its previous owners included Henry Ford II and Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister who helped create OPEC.For $45 million, the West 69th Street buyer gets 19,600 square feet, five bedrooms and 11 bathrooms across eight stories connected by a limestone floating staircase and a commercial-grade elevator. The parlor floor runs 38 feet wide with 24-foot ceilings and a pair of wood-burning fireplaces at opposite ends. The garden level holds an indoor-outdoor wellness space built around a 55-foot indoor lap pool. The full-floor primary suite tops 2,000 square feet with its own fireplace and a south-facing terrace, and there’s a penthouse lounge with a wraparound terrace, wet bar and skylight.
Compass’ Jim St. Andre, Trevor Stephens and Michael Maniawski had the listing. St. Andre did not respond to The Real Deal’s request for comment. The outlet noted that even after the renovation, the asking price always looked like a stretch for a house that lacks the grand limestone or Georgian facade of comparable homes across the park.
Whether a light renovation means anything more than paint and fixtures is the open question on the block. Given the history here, ‘light renovation’ may not land gently on West 69th Street.
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