It was not even two years ago that the estate of late Armenian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist , a quiet but prolific collector of old master paintings and other classical European artworks, sold his magnificent Gilded Age mansion just off Fifth Avenue on ’s East 79th Street for in an all-cash deal to a mysterious buyer whose identity is shielded behind a foreign LLC. Freshly overhauled, it’s now back up for grabs with Serena Boardman at Sotheby’s International Realty at .

The Beaux Arts , designed in the late 1890s by high society architect C.P.H. Gilbert, had quite an illustrious beginning. Opulent and “ ” with a collection of animal mounts, it was first owned by James E. Nichols, who died in 1914, and his wife, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Nichols, who was strangled to death on the home

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