As a gift for Jeffrey Epstein’s 63rd birthday, friends sent letters in tribute to the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender. Several shared a common theme: recounting the dinner gatherings that Mr. Epstein regularly hosted at his palatial townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel, and his wife noted the great diversity of guests. “There is no limit to your curiosity,” they wrote in their message, which was compiled with others in January 2016. “You are like a closed book to many of them but you know everything about everyone.”
The media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman suggested ingredients for a meal that would reflect the culture of the mansion: a simple salad and whatever else “would enhance Jeffrey’s sexual performance.”
And the director Woody Allen described how the dinners reminded him of Dracula’s castle, “where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service the place.”
But Mr. Epstein’s prized property was no gloomy Transylvanian fortress. He had spent years turning the seven-story, 21,000-square-foot townhouse into a place where he could flaunt — and deepen — his connections to the rich and powerful, even as hints of his dark side lurked within, according to previously undisclosed photos and documents showing how he lived in his later years.
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