As you can probably imagine, the estate of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein seems to be having some trouble getting rid of Great St. James and Little St. James, the infamous private islands in the US Virgin Islands which were allegedly being used as part of Epstein's underage sex trafficking operations.
In March of this year, both islands were listed in a package deal for $125 million. With no takers, the two islands have been divided up and now have asking prices of $55 million each.
Great St. James (bottom) and Little St. James (center) (REUTERS/Marco Bello /via Alamy)
In the photo above, Great St. James is the larger island in the center and Little St. James is the smaller one up top. Great St. James spans 160 acres, Little St. James spans a bit more than 70 acres. Epstein bought Little St. James in 1998 for $7.5 million. In 2016 he spent $18 million to buy the adjacent, 162-acre, Great St. James.
Splitting up such an expansive property is an obvious way to expand the base of potential buyers, but even if someone out there was rich enough to want to purchase both, they could do so for $110 million, itself a $15 million discount compared to the initial asking price.
Proceeds for the sale, according to Daniel Weiner, one of the estate's attorneys, will go towards settling all the myriad lawsuits and other debts left behind by Epstein after his death in the summer of 2019. The two islands are reported to be among the last of Epstein's former real estate holdings still left, as his estate has already managed to sell properties like his Upper East Side mansion for $51 million and his Palm Beach house for $18.5 million.
The islands themselves probably carry more baggage and negative energy than any other private island in the history of international real estate, so it remains to be seen whether they can find a buyer or buyers even at these lower asking prices. Great St. James, the larger of the two, spreads across over 160 acres and is somewhat sparsely developed, while Little St. James has more than 70 acres and is outfitted with "a helipad, a private dock, a gas station, two pools, a main residential compound, four guest villas, three private beaches, a gym and a tiki hut."
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