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A foreign limited liability company with ties to a Qatari businessman is looking to turn a vacant Gilded Age mansion on the Upper East Side into a private members-only club, records show.
The applicant, Celtic New York, is requesting permission from the city to renovate the landmarked, Beaux Arts-style townhouse at 854 Fifth Ave. “in order to give it new life as a private members’ club with three guestrooms that will allow transient occupancy.”
Under the anodyne name 854 Fifth Acquisition, the applicant purchased the 6-story, roughly 16,000-square-foot structure in 2022 for $50 million in an all-cash deal from the five heads of the former Yugoslavia — Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Slovenia, records show.
The New York Post reported at the time that the anonymous buyer was a foreign national based in London who owns property around the world. That jibes with the life of 44-year-old Abdulhadi Al-Hajri, who has been linked to splashy real estate transactions in the past, such as the Ritz in London, and has ties to prominent and controversial political figures around the globe. Al-Hajri is listed on the application as an individual owner who controls at least 10% of Celtic New York.
According to various reports, Al-Hajri is the brother-in-law of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, who is considered one of the most powerful people in the country and has control of the Qatar Armed Forces. Al-Hajri is also reportedly friendly with the former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, who was jailed last year for a range of charges, including for exposing secret government documents, terrorism and inciting violence.
United Kingdom-based firm Thornham Residential Holdings is listed as the representative for the client, Celtic New York, whose only point of contact is the law firm on file, New York-based DLA Piper — the same firm whose partner, Chris Smith, represented the anonymous buyer of the Fifth Avenue mansion two years ago, records show. Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Simon Nurney, who serves as director of Thornham Residential Holdings, also did not return a request for comment by press time.
The property, which is apparently equipped with bullet-proof windows and Cold War-era spy gear, has a history of connections to international figures. It once hid Josip Broz Tito, the late-president of the former Yugoslavia, during an assassination attempt in 1963, the Post reported.
Erected in 1903, the mansion sits within the Upper East Side Historic District and became one of the city’s first individually designated landmarks in 1969. Designed by Warren and Wetmore, the same architects behind the New York Yacht Club and Grand Central Terminal, the building was damaged in a 2018 fire. According to the application, Celtic is also looking to restore both its exterior and interior. Peter Pennoyer Architect is the architect of record.
Land-use attorney Valerie Campbell, a partner at New York-based law firm Kramer Levin, who is representing the applicant before the city, declined to comment.
A project spokeswoman declined to provide more details about its purpose and said only in a statement to Crain’s that they are in the “early stages of an exciting project that aims to fully restore one of New York’s last remaining Gilded Age buildings to its architectural and historical splendor.”
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Julianne Cuba , 2024-05-10 19:45:32
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