The Upper East Side townhouse of a bankrupt former hedge fund manager has sold to the son of late Disney mogul Michael Eisner for a bargain after a protracted family legal fight.
Film producer Eric Eisner paid just under $10 million for the home at 178 East 73rd Street, which has been at the center of a messy dispute between former activist investor Jason Ader and his mother, Pamela Ader, according to public records. Jason bought the home for $13 million in 2010.
Eisner signed a contract to purchase the 6,800-square-foot home in March, roughly three months after it hit the market with an asking price of $10.9 million. It has six bedrooms, four bathrooms and a garden terrace. It also features an elevator, chef’s kitchen, library and gym.
Adam Modlin of the Modlin Group, who represented both sides of the deal, declined to comment on the sale.
Legal fight
The deal for the townhouse came after a New York judge ordered Jason to allow his mother, as the executor of his father’s estate, to sell the property after he defaulted on a $13 million loan secured by the property and guaranteed by his father, Richard Ader, founder and chairman of U.S. Realty Advisors, in 2016.
Pamela sued Jason and the entity he used to purchase the property, JS Property Holdings LLC, in 2024 over breach of contract allegations. In the lawsuit, she alleges that in 2020, Jason signed an agreement with his father requiring him to pay Richard back — with interest — if he failed to meet the debt payments. The agreement granted Richard the right to sell the property if Jason defaulted on the Bank of America loan, which he did in 2023 after his father’s death.
Jason, through his attorneys, pushed back against the claims in the lawsuit, arguing that he signed the agreement “under extreme pressure,” according to court documents. He also accused his mother of conspiring with his estranged wife, Julie Ader, in “secret dealings” to “drain [his] resources.”
“Having engineered Jason’s financial ruin, [Pamela] then filed this lawsuit, even feeding the media a one-sided narrative that Jason is the ‘world’s worst son’ for purportedly defaulting on a family debt,” his attorney wrote in a memorandum opposing Pamela’s summary judgment request. “What that narrative omits is evidence of [Pamela’s] and Julie’s deliberate sabotage that rendered Jason’s performance impossible.”
In a letter to the judge, Jason also alleged that Julie, who filed for divorce in 2020, refused to leave the property months after he asked her to, which, he argued, prevented him from selling the home earlier and forced him to continue covering carrying costs.
However, Judge Joel Cohen rejected Jason’s argument in a decision issued last year, allowing Pamela to sell the home.
“[Jason’s] opposition consists of a Gatling gun blast of purported defenses and counterclaims seeking to cast blame in every conceivable direction…save the most obvious one — that is, upon Jason himself,” Cohen wrote in the order.
After the home hit the market in January, Jason emailed Modlin to express his opposition to the asking price as well as his mother’s authority to sell the home — a move which Pamela, through her attorneys, reported to the judge.
“I understand you may have been advised by a third party that they had authority to market or sell the property. I believe that guidance was mistaken,” Jason wrote to Modlin. “I am not willing to sell the house at or near the current price under any circumstances.”
But Modlin found a buyer for the property soon after, and the sale closed earlier this month.
Michael Fourte, an attorney for Jason, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jill Garfinkel, the attorney who signed the deed for the property for Pamela, declined to comment.
Financial woes
Aside from the townhouse fight, Ader is also in the midst of a protracted contested divorce and a personal bankruptcy proceeding, which he initiated in Miami in December. Ader stated in court documents that he had roughly $2 million worth of debt.
As part of the proceeding, Ader claimed he had less than $250,000 in assets, including a Tesla Cybertruck valued at $70,000 and two guinea pigs priced at $25 each, the New York Post reported.
On a call earlier this year, Ader told creditors that his financial challenges arose from “a combination of the divorce proceedings, a long-standing family dispute, which relates to the activity around the townhouse, and an unexpected IRS liability that I am working through,” the Post reported.
Creditors on the call pressed Ader about his ability to afford living in his four-bedroom condo at the One Thousand Museum tower in downtown Miami, which he bought for nearly $6 million in 2021. Ader told them the apartment was owned by one of his companies and was therefore not part of his personal bankruptcy proceeding.
Before declaring personal bankruptcy, Ader began Chapter 11 proceedings for one of his investment companies, 26 Capital Acquisition Corp, in September, after the failure of a proposed $2.5 billion acquisition of Okada Manila, a casino in the Philippines. The investment company is also tied to Ader’s hedge fund, Spring Owl Technology Partners.
Ader was previously a Bear Stearns analyst focused on the gaming industry. He was also known for his work as an activist investor, including his efforts to oust former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
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