FREE-SPENDING Turkish telecommunications mogul Cem Uzan, perhaps best known in this country as the buyer of a $38 million duplex penthouse on top of the new Trump World Tower, is pulling out of his deal to take the colossal condo to avoid having it seized by U.S. creditors, The Post has learned.
Uzan’s family-owned company, Telsim, is Turkey’s No. 2 wireless telephone company and it is in arrears to mobile handset giants Motorola and Nokia for nearly $3 billion in loans. A Motorola executive says his company will take “all necessary steps” to recoup its $2 billion cash layout.
“So far, Telsim has been largely uncooperative,” Motorola CEO Bob Growney said about possible talks of loan restructuring.
The sociable UCLA-educated Turk – who travels in social circles that includes Prince Charles – will forfeit an approximate $10 million deposit on the 17,000-square-foot apartment on the 89th and 90th floors, while a team of investigators continues to pick through his seizable assets in Europe and the United States.
They may want to add to the list the two smaller units he’s already closed on in the building’s lower floors. Uzan’s local properties are also said to include a $6.3 million place at 515 Park Ave. and several units at United Nations Plaza. Other tangibles reportedly include a private island, a Turkish ranch, a Boeing 747, a smaller short-range private jet, two helicopters and three yachts.
The Uzan family also has holdings that include the Imar Bank, The Turkish Daily Star newspaper and a satellite television company.
Meanwhile, the Turkish press is painting a rather unglamorous portrait of the smooth Uzan’s dealings as a “rich man who doesn’t pay his debts.” It accuses his company of non-payment of earthquake relief funds – from government-imposed taxes charged to Telsim subscribers – to the Ministry of Finance. Uzan could not be reached for comment.
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Meanwhile, in Water Mill, the Wilzig “castle,” the farcical fortress on five “north of the highway” acres is for sale, again – this time for $3.39 million. The Wilzig brothers, Alan and Ivan, pooled their trust funds and built a 14,000-square-foot funhouse more than four years ago to throw bacchanalian bashes of biblical proportions, according to the gossip pages.
The flashy manor has six bedroom suites, a “ballroom,” screening room, billiards room, gym with sauna and steam room. The property features a vanishing-edge pool with underwater speakers, tennis court, volleyball court, gate house and a pond.
Things were going swimmingly until the boys’ father, Siggi, who runs the company that bankrolls their lifestyle, put his foot down and took over the infamous digs last summer. He’s since tried to tone the house down – removing the nude statues by the pool, for example – but it’s still not quite what the social-register set is seeking.
As the ad for the property suggests, “This fun home isn’t for everyone . . . but the bold . . . the brave . . . the few.”
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It’s doubtful any working-class heroes will be able to afford John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s former Palm Beach home for $100,000 a month this season.
“El Salano,” the 22-room Addison Mizner oceanfront mansion – which Mizner designed for himself in 1919, then sold to Harold Vanderbilt – has a large pool, tennis court, guest house and beach cabana.
The Lennon’s bought the Mediterranean-style pad in February 1980 – 10 months before the ex-Beatle was gunned down in New York. Yoko later remodeled the place and sold it for $3.5 million in 1986 after first listing it for $8 million in 1984. She remembers the estate as mostly a “family scene” and “just a laid back house” back then.
Socialite Brownie McLean, who sold the house to the Lennons for about $700,000, was not so laid-back in 1975 after learning she had rented the compound to a corporation owned by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. To the chagrin of Brownie and her neighbors, Flynt shot and published explicit photos of his camera-friendly babes for the magazine using the exotically planted landmarked property as a backdrop.
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