Little-known Sackler Heir Buys $11M Brooklyn Townhouse

An under-the-radar heir to one of America’s wealthiest — and most controversial — families has picked up a property in Brooklyn Heights.

The previously anonymous buyer of the $11 million townhouse at 17 Willow Place is Julia Shack Sackler, according to a person familiar with the deal. Julia is in the third generation of the Sackler family, which built a billion-dollar pharmaceutical business best known for its 1996 debut of OxyContin and that recently agreed to a $7.4 billion settlement for its role in the opioid crisis.

Public records show she was represented in the deal by an attorney close to a previous settlement agreement the family signed in 2020 with the United States Department of Justice related to its role in the country’s opioid epidemic.

The buyer’s attorney on the deed, Ian McClatchey, appeared on a list of Sackler family trustees and protectors in the settlement deal. McClatchey’s law firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, has also been tied to the family and Purdue Pharmaceutical, the family business responsible for producing OxyContin, the drug that fueled the widespread crisis.

Julia is the daughter of Susan Shack Sackler and Kathe Sackler, who was a member of the Purdue Pharma board and one of the named defendants in the civil lawsuit filed by the DOJ. Kathe is the daughter of Mortimer Sackler, the psychiatrist and entrepreneur who was born the middle of three late brothers who laid the foundation for Purdue Pharma, including Arthur who died in 1987, nine years before the launch of OxyContin, and Raymond, who died in 2017.

Earlier this year, state attorneys general agreed to a $7.4 billion settlement deal with Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family, which has its wealth estimated to be at least $11 billion in 2021.

The pharma heir managed to secure the 4,600-square-foot townhouse by bidding 10 percent over the $10 million asking price. The home, which was designed by Robert Kahn and completed in 2012, has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a two-story window that looks out onto a private garden.

Brown Harris Stevens’ Joan Goldberg had the listing. Goldberg declined a request to comment.

Family real estate ties

Members of the family, which federal lawmakers said in 2021 counted $1 billion in real estate among its assets, have made some sizable property trades in the wake of legal action.

Mortimer D.A. Sackler, another child of Mortimer Sackler, sold a $38 million Upper East Side townhouse to hedge fund billionaire Israel Englander in 2020. The AG’s office also alleged that Sackler, who bought the property for $15.5 million in 2004, failed to disclose his ownership of the 75th Street townhouse in litigation.

Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, sister of Mortimer D.A. and Kathe, owns a roughly 3,100-square-foot unit at the famed San Remo building on Central Park West, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2020.

Elizabeth Sackler, daughter of Arthur, earlier this year closed on a nearly $12 million sale for her Carnegie Hill home.

David Sackler, a grandchild of Raymond and the only member of the family’s third generation to serve on the company’s board, purchased a Bel-Air mansion in 2018 for $22.5 million in an all-cash deal. In 2020, he sold a Lenox Hill condominium and a storage unit at 200 East 66th Street for a little over $6 million.