Brooklyn’s Most Expensive Home Has Ties to a Russian Socialite—and Maybe the Mob

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Brooklyn’s most expensive home is far from the hipster haven of Williamsburg or even pricey Park Slope. It’s so far off the beaten path, it’s in a neighborhood that most New Yorkers have never even heard of. But it has a backstory that can’t be beat, involving a reputed mobster and the ex-wife of a Russian minerals baron.

The $18 million, four-story, 14,000-square-foot mansion sits on the water in Mill Basin, an affluent community far from Manhattan’s hustle and bustle, on the southern tip of Brooklyn near Coney Island. It has eight bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

The residence belongs to Galina Anissimova, according to realtor.com® records. Anissimova is the ex-wife of minerals baron Vasily Anisimov, one of Russia’s richest citizens. Her daughter is socialite Anna Anissimova, known as the “Russian-American Paris Hilton.”

(Rebecca Cahill is listed as the co-owner of the property, but Cahill’s relationship to Anissimova is unclear.)

Brooklyn’s most expensive home features a multislip marina, multiple terraces, and a swimming pool and spa.

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The mansion’s price is surprising considering the location is quite a trek from the city’s mass transit lines and hipper neighborhoods, features typically prized by local buyers. But perhaps the hellish traffic is no object when you have a private driver?

And the home’s floor-to-ceiling windows, multiple terraces, pool and spa, outdoor pavilion and kitchen, and multislip marina could make potential buyers reconsider the long commute. The property also comes with a solarium, meditation room, five-car garage, and 7,800-square-foot guesthouse.

“Magnificent, one-of-a-kind gated waterfront oasis for the discerning buyer who seeks the very finest upscale comforts and state-of-the-art indulgences,” reads the listing on realtor.com. “An elusive opportunity has presented itself for you to experience an unrivaled, resort-style standard of living unlike any other in New York City, in a phenomenal gated compound, exquisitely designed and renovated by [noted interior designer] Noel Jeffrey.”

Over-the-top bathroom

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Anissimova appears to have purchased it in the mid-1990s from John Rosatti, a reputed mobster. He got into a scuffle with the state over allegedly excavating and adding landfill to tidal wetlands to enlarge the property, according to the Village Voice.

Anissimova reportedly spent more than $30 million to turn the property into her dream home, according to the New York Daily News. In 2000, she bought the neighboring home, demolished it, and put up a guesthouse, according to the News.

And while the current $18 million price tag might seem high, it’s a relative bargain compared with the property’s $30 million list price in 2013, before Anissimova took it off the market.

Still, “this neighborhood has never seen prices close to this asked,” says New York City–based real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller. “It certainly makes it a much harder sell.”

The average selling price in Mill Basin to date this year is just $909,000, he says. The highest price paid this year was $1.79 million for a 3,900-square-foot residence.

Meanwhile, homes in Brooklyn’s most expensive neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, are going for an average of nearly $7.6 million this year, he says. The most expensive sale was for a 7,000-square-foot home, at $12.9 million. And it should be noted that Brooklyn Heights, a waterfront community of brownstones, is a short—and easy—commute to Manhattan.

Anissimova’s home “has little resemblance to the neighborhood that surrounds it,” Miller says. “It almost looks like it should be on the Florida coastline.”

The upper-middle-class Mill Basin area is filled with mostly one- and two-family, custom-built homes, says Mill Basin–based Realtor® Lee Wasserman of Bergen Basin Realty.

“Here people have oversized lots. Most people have in-ground pools, hot tubs,” he says. But “it’s not near a train. … It’s a little secluded.”

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