Marlborough’s former Chelsea flagship sells to Gazelli for $7.5 million

Marlborough Gallery’s former Chelsea flagship has sold for $7.5 million to Gazelli Art House, a gallery based in London and Baku, Azerbaijan.

Marlborough spent decades among the art world’s most powerful dealers before it shut down in 2024, ending a nearly 80-year run.

Gazelli bought the first and second floors of the Chelsea Arts Tower, a 20-story condominium at 545 West 25th Street near Hudson Yards. Jeffrey Zoldan and Roger Gillen of Brown Harris Stevens handled the sale for Marlborough.

The two floors were listed at $10.9 million, $3.4 million more than Gazelli paid.

The space covers 9,228 square feet, with ceilings reaching 18 feet. A street-level garage door takes in works up to about 14 feet tall, a curb cut out front eases loading, and the second floor opens onto a 1,250-square-foot terrace.

Each floor carries zoning that the listing says permits galleries, museums, schools, gyms and religious institutions.

Gazelli, started in London in 2010 by Mila Askarova, plans to make the space its permanent New York base and keep it in use for art, Brown Harris Stevens said in a post on the sale.

Marlborough said in April 2024 that it would drop its artists, stop mounting exhibitions and sell off its inventory. Years of losses, along with lawsuits and infighting among the owners and executives who controlled it, had brought the gallery down.

Marlborough’s unraveling has also played out in the courts. Urgent Matter previously reported that a New York judge in June cleared the gallery of claims it had wrecked a rival Paris dealer’s multimillion-dollar ceramics deal, a fight that lasted close to seven years in state court.

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