Press Coverage

The Telegraph

March 28, 2021

Why the Buyer of Jeffrey Epstein's Mansion Might get it Spiritually Cleansed
The property has sold for $51m, but insiders recommend calling in experts to perform 'space healing' and 'exorcism'

by Precious Adesina

Not everyone is superstitious, but there are those who would be put off buying the former home of a prolific sex offender who was found dead in jail while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors. Particularly when many of the crimes are alleged to have taken place in that very house. But former Goldman Sachs executive Michael Daffey and his wife Blake have gone ahead and bought Jeffrey Epstein's infamous townhouse - for a cool $51 million.

Originally listed for $88 million, the French neoclassical-style property on the Upper East Side is steeped in so much shame that many watchers thought it wouldn’t sell. Especially during the pandemic which has hit the New York property market. But after eight months and $37m knocked off the price, it found its buyer. Proceeds from the sale will be going to the restitution fund providing compensation for the disgraced billionaire’s sexual-abuse victims.

The couple see the mansion “as a place with a lot of potential, once it undergoes a physical and spiritual transformation,” says a spokesman for the couple. ‘Spiritual’ is the key word here: surely nothing other than a full cleanse of the apartment’s negative energy could make it habitable. Sondra Shaye, a healer who specialises in ‘space clearing’ New York apartments says this isn’t impossible, even for homes with the darkest pasts.

‘Space clearing’ is the art of resetting a building’s energy and can be done with anything from Feng Sui to exorcism. Shaye works with ‘universal energy’ which is said to stem from the theory in quantum physics that all matter is composed of energy. Reiki, a Japanese healing technique is based on this principle.

Shaye’s four- or five-step process includes removing “all negative energy” from each room and its objects by talking to the higher energies, then replacing the negative energy with positive energy using holy water (which Shaye describes as tap water which she infuses with blessed energy, a craft she says she learned through powerful initiations) and handmade ‘healing symbols’, which she puts around the room. These include Prema Agni - a cross with two legs, one of them with jagged edges, a heart above the arms, and a triangle below - which is said to represent the ‘unification of peace’ and burn away desire, anger and greed.

“It's absolutely possible to clear any space of negative energy,” Shaye says. “Because of what [Epstein] participated in and organised in that house, it probably has negativity on the next level.” By that she means ‘negative entities’, which she didn’t want to describe further for fear of sounding ‘sensationalist’ but which other experts explain are bad spirits, demons or ghosts. “Most places don't have this, but [Epstein’s], I bet, has lots of them. You have to be a very experienced, powerful space clearer, because they actually can cause harm to the person doing the clearing.”

‘Space clearing’ is the art of resetting a building’s energy and can be done with anything from Feng Sui to exorcism. Shaye works with ‘universal energy’ which is said to stem from the theory in quantum physics that all matter is composed of energy. Reiki, a Japanese healing technique is based on this principle.

Shaye’s four- or five-step process includes removing “all negative energy” from each room and its objects by talking to the higher energies, then replacing the negative energy with positive energy using holy water (which Shaye describes as tap water which she infuses with blessed energy, a craft she says she learned through powerful initiations) and handmade ‘healing symbols’, which she puts around the room. These include Prema Agni - a cross with two legs, one of them with jagged edges, a heart above the arms, and a triangle below - which is said to represent the ‘unification of peace’ and burn away desire, anger and greed.

“It's absolutely possible to clear any space of negative energy,” Shaye says. “Because of what [Epstein] participated in and organised in that house, it probably has negativity on the next level.” By that she means ‘negative entities’, which she didn’t want to describe further for fear of sounding ‘sensationalist’ but which other experts explain are bad spirits, demons or ghosts. “Most places don't have this, but [Epstein’s], I bet, has lots of them. You have to be a very experienced, powerful space clearer, because they actually can cause harm to the person doing the clearing.”

Shaye suspects that it will cost the Daffeys upwards of $20,000 to rid the 28,000 square-foot house of the residue of its former energy. She adds that the expert they choose would need to carve out an entire day to perform the cleanse if doing it in person, though she mentions it’s possible to do it by distance. “If you were doing it in person, the challenging part would also be the size. I go in and out of every room several times and when it's a very big home like a mansion that takes a lot of a time.”

Separate from space clearing, Shaye mentions that, given Epstein’s sordid past, she’d recommend redesigning the house too. “They probably want to erase all memories of this person ever having been there,” she says. Guests have mentioned a larger than life-sized sculpture of a naked African warrior, and a framed photo of a woman holding an opium pipe while caressing a lion skin.

There’s also been mention of the entrance hall having been decorated with rows of individually framed eyeballs, a stuffed black poodle atop the piano and a human chessboard with customised figurines dressed suggestively and modeled after his staffers. “I wouldn't be able to live there personally, but maybe there's no other place like that in the city available,” Shaye concludes.

Indeed - there are limited opportunities for netting a really top-notch property in Manhattan. “Real estate gossip in New York is as hot as the latest celebrity news in this city,” says Sarah Kennedy, an Upper West sider and Telegraph correspondent. “There is a very high-end market in New York for homes that once belonged to someone famous,” she adds. “When it's a fashion person, like Tom Ford who bought Halston's home, he kept it more or less the same, like a museum to the great designer. The home of jewellery designer Kenneth J. Lane has also recently been bought.” This purchaser has yet to be revealed though Kennedy suspects it to be someone of the calibre of Madonna or Anna Wintour.

Jamie Drake who has worked on some of America’s most glamorous spaces - including for the former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and Madonna - agrees that the space can be transformed. “The townhouse was commissioned by one of the R.H. Macy heirs and was almost, but not, completed before his death in 1933,” he says, adding that the piece of architecture by prominent architect Horace Trumbauer is no different from any old house.

“Many illustrious homes have known tragedy, and yet are reborn by new owners. As interior designers, our job is to envision and create new, fresh chapters in residences, and this often involves reimagining them in ways that make them unrecognisable from the past. I trust Mr.Daffey will do this.” The Daffeys are using interior designers Timothy Haynes and Kevin Roberts.

“I'd start by pulling up all wall to wall and stair runner carpets, refinish all wood floors and remove all wall coverings. Furthermore, some or all of the light fixtures throughout could be looked at with an eye on replacing them,” adds Alan Tanksley, one of America's leading practitioners of residential design.

Epstein’s former mansion is on 9 East 71st Street, one of the most fashionable parts of the super-prime Manhattan district, and the home was once a sanctuary for priceless art and beautiful design. When Leslie H. Wexner purchased the property for $13.2 million in 1989 - a record price for townhouse sales in Manhattan at the time - he filled it with works by artists such as Picasso and his drawing rooms were featured on the December 1995 cover of Architectural Digest magazine. There will have to be much redecoration and even more psychic healing before the house can feature anywhere so salubrious again.