Lights burned out? Chandeliers in this 22,000-sqare-foot home are motorized for easy bulb replacement.
Unhappy that you had only half the money together to buy Evermay, the Georgetown mansion that sold for $22 million this spring in one of the area’s most expensive deals ever? Annoyed that the addition of another maid means you’ve outgrown the two servants’ bedrooms in your current home? You’re in luck!
Pakistani magnate Moeen Qureshi, a former World Bank vice president, again has put his house in DC’s Observatory Circle on the market, this time for $12 million—$9 million less than when it was listed in 2006. That’s believed to be one of the highest list prices in local real-estate history, after only Evermay and Georgetown’s Bowie-Sevier Mansion, sold in 2007 to Robert Allbritton for $24 million.
Qureshi’s 22,000-square-foot house was formerly two properties on Benton Place, Northwest, combined in a renovation a decade ago. It comes with eight main and three staff bedrooms, nine full and three half baths, and such details as two motorized crystal chandeliers in the front foyer that can be lowered for cleaning and bulb replacement.
Qureshi—chairman, managing partner, and cofounder of the EMP Global private-equity firm—didn’t have to look far for a real-estate agent: His son Samir, an agent with Long & Foster, is selling the house. In this economy, a 3-percent commission on a $12-million sale is a decent gift from Dad.
This article appears in the November 2011 issue of The Washingtonian.
