Seven months after at $10 million, a Raleigh mansion once raided by FBI agents investigating an explosive murder-for-hire plot still has no buyers. Even after a $1 million price drop. It’s now up for sale through a live, in-person auction.
What’s more intriguing: there’s no reserve. Starting at 6 p.m.
Aug. 23, the 16,856-square-foot house at in the North Ridge Country Club neighborhood will sell to the highest bidder. “No matter the bid price,” said Trayor Lesnock, founder of Platinum Luxury Auctions.
Listing agency Engel & Völkers Raleigh has partnered with the Miami-based auction house to sell the property. In a , the seller can’t reject or decline any bids, and there’s no minimum bid. The highest bidder wins the house, even if the bid is lower than the seller’s estimate.
“If the highest bid is $1 million, it’s sold for that amount,” Lesnock said. That would be a relative steal for the swoon-worthy mansion with “Texas-cream limestone” columns and “Brazilian cherry-wood doors” that once housed the storied Russian couple, Leonid and Tatiana Teyf. In 2018, the FBI raided the estate, that included money laundering, plotting a murder-for-hire and defrauding the Russian government out of tens of millions of dollars.
The Teyfs eventually surrendered $6 million in assets but kept the mansion, Today, the mansion stands behind a black cast-iron gate on a 1.8-acre lot overlooking the club’s 18th green. It boasts eight bedrooms, 14 baths, two elevators.