‘The Profit’ Host Marcus Lemonis Squeezes Into $18 Million Manhattan Townhouse

Marcus Lemonis is the investor/entrepreneur/television personality who owns the rights to “Let’s Make a Deal,” and rather grandly touts himself on his own website as the person who’s our “Bridge to knowledge and opportunity, not only in business but in life.” He’s also the chairman and CEO of Camping World, as well as several other companies, and is known to TV watchers as the host of CNBC’s long-running docu-style reality series “The Profit,” on which he offers his expertise and/or investment to struggling small businesses in exchange for an ownership stake. The entrepreneur, who boasts a cross-country portfolio of gorgeous homes in Montecito, Florida, and Chicago, has owned various pieds-à-terre in New York City before, but this time around he’s splurged on brand-new 20-foot-wide townhouse on the Upper East Side that cost him a whopping $18 million.

And what a place it is! Granted, our hearts are always captured by the old and venerable mansions that have withstood the test of time, but there is much to be said for a new build that can be customized and tweaked endlessly without the nagging feeling one is destroying history. Between Madison and Park Avenues, the handsome bow-fronted townhouse was designed by architect Henry Jessup. Adhering to classic architectural tropes, the limestone façade was given the stamp of approval by NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the exterior looks almost Haussmanian, with French-inspired windows and a slate mansard roof.

With five bedrooms and six bathrooms plus two more powder rooms in about 9,200 square feet spread over five floors plus a full height basement, there is certainly plenty of room to roam. There’s a staircase to get from one floor to the other, of course, but fortunately there’s also an elevator that services all six floors plus the roof terrace.

The ground floor includes the main entrance and stair hall, a cozy library or home office and huge eat-in kitchen, which features a wood-burning fireplace (one of the last of its kind, as NYC has banned them in future new constructions.) French doors in the kitchen open to a 31-foot-deep private garden overlooked by some of the surrounding buildings. The next floor up boasts the living room, with another wood-burning fireplace along with a wet bar and a powder room, as well as the formal dining room, with its adjacent butler’s pantry.

Each of the four guest bedrooms located on the next two floors sports a private bath and a walk-in closet or dressing room, and there’s also a laundry room on the fourth floor. The master suite privately occupies the entire fifth floor, with a spacious dressing room and two minimalist bathrooms, one considerably larger than the other with a soaking tub set beneath arched windows.

Atop the house, the roof terrace is largely unfinished and ready for customization, as is the basement, which could become a screening room, gym, wine cellar — or maybe all three. The basement also offers lots of storage and a second laundry room.

Lemonis, who was born in Lebanon, orphaned as a toddler and adopted by a family in Miami, obviously has the means to indulge his good taste in homes across the country so maybe we should indeed take the bridge to his knowledge and opportunity in life, after all.