{"id":348654,"date":"2026-09-16T21:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348654\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T21:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:02:11","slug":"roblox-widow-bought-15-9m-nyc-mansion-to-live-in-with-escort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348654\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Roblox’ widow bought $15.9M NYC mansion to live in with escort"},"content":{"rendered":"

A grieving widow sitting on a \u201cRoblox\u201d fortune recently shelled out nearly $16 million on one of Manhattan\u2019s grandest mansions to build a life with the male escort she claims later fleeced her for millions<\/a>, property records reviewed by The Post show.<\/p>\n

Marianne Flippo, 49, closed on the landmarked house in Kips Bay on April 30, plunking down $15.9 million for the Gilded Age Beaux-Arts showpiece mere months before accusing her companion Gregg Starr, 38, of draining her bank accounts.<\/p>\n

The 1903 mansion, built for banker James F.D. Lanier and his socialite wife Harriet, spans six stories and 11,638 square feet with 12 bedrooms and nine-plus bathrooms, a wine cellar, an oak-paneled elevator, and a wellness floor complete with a cold plunge pool and a cedar sauna.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marianne Flippo and Gregg Starr. Courtesy Youssef Mamdouh<\/p>\n

Marianne closed on the landmarked James F.D. Lanier House on April 30, paying $15.9 million for the six-story Gilded Age mansion. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The home is a 1903 Beaux-Arts showpiece. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The property initially hit the market in 2023 for a whopping $29.2 million.\u00a0It last listed for $16.5 million before closing at a slight discount, property records show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Flippo\u2019s attorney Larry Hutcher confirmed to The Post that the purchase was not a solo indulgence.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe bought that house because she thought it was a beautiful property,\u201d Hutcher said. \u201cShe thought it would be a nice home for them to live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The home spans 11,638 square feet. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The home features an oak-paneled elevator and a wellness floor with a cold plunge pool and sauna. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

Flippo\u2019s attorney Larry Hutcher told The Post the purchase was meant for two people, saying \u201cshe thought it would be a nice home for them to live in.\u201d Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The grand foyer. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The mansion buy landed squarely inside the same window Flippo now says Starr and an escort agency handler were pressuring her to fork over millions more under a bogus \u201cbuyout\u201d scheme, according to her Manhattan Supreme Court filing.<\/p>\n

Hutcher added that despite splurging on the Murray Hill trophy home, Flippo \u2014 whose husband, Chad, died by suicide in 2024 \u2014 hadn\u2019t fully relocated her life to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe still does live in New Hampshire as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Starr is allegedly a male escort Flippo met in December 2024 through an agency she initially believed offered personal assistants rather than paid companionship. Jason Lowrie\/BFA.com\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Hutcher noted Flippo hadn\u2019t fully abandoned her old life despite the massive purchase, saying \u201cshe still does live in New Hampshire as well.\u201d Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The wood-paneled library. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The mansion purchase landed in the same window Flippo now claims Starr and an escort agency handler were coercing her into a fraudulent $10 million \u201cbuyout\u201d scheme. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The historic mansion is designed by the same architects behind the FDR Presidential Library. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The home carries estimated monthly costs north of six figures including roughly $14,000 in property taxes alone. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

Property records paint a portrait of a woman who restructured her entire geography around a man she\u2019d met barely a year earlier. Flippo had spent decades in New England, with a documented address in Walpole, New Hampshire dating back to the late 1990s, before Starr moved into her New York apartment last December, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The relationship began innocently enough in December 2024, when Flippo \u2014 who suffers from a rare genetic condition \u2014 needed an Italian-speaking companion for a trip to Italy. She was steered toward Cowboys 4 Angels \u2014 an agency she says she believed offered personal assistants, not paid companionship. She didn\u2019t realize the outfit was actually a male escort service until well into their entanglement, the suit claims.<\/p>\n

By this spring, prosecutors\u2019 version of events and Flippo\u2019s lawsuit allege, Starr and the agency were pressuring the medically fragile widow, plied with alcohol and recovering from surgery, into signing a $10 million \u201cExit Agreement\u201d so he could supposedly buy his way out of his contract with the agency. <\/p>\n

A Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed this month now seeks to claw back the stolen funds, with Flippo\u2019s own filings describing a shared bank account that dwindled to just $12.61. Instagram\/Gregg Starr<\/p>\n

One of 12 bedrooms. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The expansive kitchen. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The great room. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

The outdoor patio. Carli Biryla<\/p>\n

Gregg a photo posted to Instagram on November 29, 2021. Instagram\/Gregg Starr<\/p>\n

She wired $5.95 million into a joint Charles Schwab account before Starr allegedly moved most of it into an account under his sole control and threatened to disappear with the cash. According to her own court filings, it ended with her bank balance reduced to just $12.61.<\/p>\n

The Lanier House itself is no ordinary address. Designed by architects Hoppin and Koen, the same firm behind the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library, the mansion was commissioned for a couple who ranked among the exclusive 400 guests said to fit inside the Astor family\u2019s Fifth Avenue ballroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is both a New York City landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with only two owners in its 120-plus year history before this sale.<\/p>\n

Other features of the home include a fitness room, and an oak-paneled library. <\/p>\n

Monthly carrying costs on the property run north of six figures, with property taxes alone estimated at roughly $14,000 a month, according to listing data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grieving widow sitting on a \u201cRoblox\u201d fortune recently shelled out nearly $16 million on one of Manhattan\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5462,20461,122832,68,396,1995,2999,5013,3000,6167,3100,2850,8606,3001,1023,75,4327,13651,6337,9,24,56,63,65,64,8812,7754,5408,1491,3006,36147,23627,1996,6069,7577],"class_list":["post-348654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-architecture","tag-cheating","tag-escorts","tag-exclusive","tag-fraud","tag-gilded-age","tag-historic-buildings","tag-homeowners","tag-landmarks","tag-landmarks-preservation-commission","tag-lawsuit","tag-lawsuits","tag-love","tag-luxe-listings","tag-luxury-real-estate","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-supreme-court","tag-mansion","tag-mansions","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-property","tag-property-taxes","tag-prostitution","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate","tag-romance","tag-schemes","tag-townhouse","tag-townhouses","tag-wire-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}