He’s suing over a $79 million handshake.
Billionaire Len Blavatnik, the owner of Warner Music and an investor in the Broadway hit “Hamilton,’’ says in a new Manhattan lawsuit that he had shaken hands with art-dealer-dynasty heir David Wildenstein on an agreement to buy the family’s “unique gem” of a town house at 19 E. 64th St. for $79 million.
But then Wildentein reneged on the deal, using Blavatnik’s offer to simply try to get a better price on the posh property, according to the suit and sources.
“David Wildenstein acted in bad faith and knowingly misrepresented his capacity to consummate this transaction in order to selfishly serve his own interests,” a spokesman for one of Blavatnik’s companies, Access Industries, told The Post.
The spectacular home was designed by Gilded Age architect Horace Trumbauer and boasts 20-foot ceilings, a paneled elevator and third-floor salon imported from the 18th-century home of a Parisian prince.
Blavatnik, who owns a home on the block, wanted the Wildenstein property for offices, according to sources. He already owns the city’s most expensive co-op, a Fifth Avenue duplex he bought for $80 million two years ago.
“Mr. Wildenstein unambiguously promised that [Blavatnik] would be able to purchase the property” Oct. 6, after extensive negotiations, according to the suit filed by Access.
Three Access executives worked around the clock to close the deal, the suit says.
Blavatnik, 59, was so intent on the sale that while focusing on it, he lost out on two business opportunities: one to buy 11 hotels in the Pacific Northwest for $220 million and one to buy 10 nursing homes worth $450 million, the suit says.
But the town-house deal started to unravel when Wildenstein, 36, pushed the closing date on the sale back to March 2017, saying he wanted to delay it for tax reasons, the suit says.
Then Wildenstein claimed for the first time on Oct. 13 that he was not “authorized to sell the property, but had to obtain ‘board approval,’ ” the suit says.
Blavatnik believes that Wildenstein used him to try to secure a higher sale price from a Chinese conglomerate, according to sources. The property is currently listed by Cushman Wakefield for $100 million.
Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-American businessman worth $18.6 billion, according to Forbes, is suing to force a sale to him or be paid $10 million.
Wildenstein did not immediately return a request for comment.