"We're in our second year of marketing the home," said Olivia Quist, sounding upbeat, as only a real-estate agent with a hard-to-sell listing can.
The house in question has a $25 million asking price, but that includes the furniture and 10 acres of land near Phoenix. It's Leona Helmsley's 20,000-square-foot contemporary, which nestles into a mountain."She bought it when Helmsley was so ill, to have a place with warm weather to bring him," Quist said. "Now that he's passed away, she just isn't coming any more."
But Leona Helmsley is not giving up. She has signed Quist's agency for another year.
"It has privacy, views, security," Quist said. And it has an indoor pool with an underwater sound system, a film screening room, a gym, a dining room that seats 24, a 36-foot waterfall and a powder room with 24-karat gold faucets. Plus 12 other bathrooms.
Did Quist expect it to take this long to sell? "Oh, yes," she said. "It's not unusual for expensive homes to be on the market for a long while."