Battle Over Oleg Cassini’s Estate Turns to His New York Town House
The family of late designer Oleg Cassini is still battling over his fortune more than a decade after his death and attention has now turned to his multimillion dollar Manhattan town house.
Oleg started out as a costume designer in Hollywood and went on to dress Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis when she was First Lady. In his later years, he licensed his name to manufacturers of everything from sunglasses to bridal gowns.
This all made him a wealthy man and his death in 2006 triggered a long fight between Oleg’s daughter Christina Cassini and his longtime companion and secret wife, Marianne Nestor Cassini, to control his estate that was estimated to be worth $55 million.
At one point, a judge ruled that Christina was entitled to half of her father’s estate under a divorce decree dating back to the Fifties, but hardly anything has been paid apart from the proceeds of the two auctioned off pieces of artwork, according to the New York Post.
After many twists and turns, Marianne was removed as executrix of the estate by a judge in 2014, but Christina died the following year.
In the most recent development to the long drawn out saga, his grandson, Alexandre Cassini Belmont, has stepped in, carrying the torch for his late mother, who was the designer’s daughter with Hollywood actress Gene Tierney.
Ibiza-based Alexandre has filed court documents demanding that the New York County Sheriff sells his grandfather’s Gramercy Park town house, which is estimated to be worth $15 million, and that close to $770,000 of the profits go to the estate of his mother.
The four-story town house dates to Victorian times, but was transformed into a picturesque Gothic house in the early 1900s when banker and polo player bought it and hired architect Frederick Sterner for the renovation. It’s understood that Oleg purchased it sometime during the Seventies.
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