Sara Bronfman Selling Albany-Area Home for $2.85 Million

Sara Bronfman House Horse Lamp

 

Sara Bronfman house for sale exterior
The property at 7 Taymor Trail, Clifton Park, New York, for sale by Sara Bronfman

Sara Bronfman-Igtet, age 46, Seagram heiress and sister of Clare Bronfman, is selling her Albany-area home at  7 Taymor Trail for $2.85 million. The home is listed by longtime Nxivm member Franca DiCrescenzo with Armida Rose Realty Group. 

 

Dalai Lama with Nxivm Members
The 14th Dalai Lama visits Albany. Sara Bronfman-Igtet is pictured at far left, standing next to Allison Mack, Nicki Clyne, Alejandra Anaya Gonzalez, Emiliano Salinas, Edgar Boone, the Dalai Lama, Loreta Garza, Lauren Salzman, Karen U., Ivy Nevares, [?] Pam Cafritz, Clare Bronfman.

Who Is Sara Bronfman-Igtet?

Sara Bronfman-Igtet is the daughter of billionaire Edgar Bronfman, former Seagram chairman. She was a long-time member and funder of Nxivm. Along with her sister, Clare Bronfman, she was part of Raniere’s “trusted group,” according to testimony by ex-Nxian Mark Vicente.

Sara held the coveted Nxivm “green sash” — making her one of fewer than two dozen of Nxivm’s 17,000 members to achieve so exalted a rank.

Sara played a major role in bringing the 14th Dalai Lama to Albany. His Holiness visited the New York State capital in the spring of 2009 to give a lecture at the Palace Theatre.

 

Dalai Lama with Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, Sara Bronfman
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, pictured with Keith Raniere, Nancy Salzman, and Sara Bronfman

Where Are Sara Bronfman and Clare Bronfman Now?

Today, Sara Bronfman-Igtet is reportedly residing in Portugal with her husband Basit Igtet and their two children. Her sister, Clare Bronfman, is serving part of her 81-month sentence in a federal detention center in Philadelphia, pending reassignment.

The Property at a Glance

Bronfman-Igtet has apparently been trying to sell this property for a while. It has been listed on Realtor.com for 136 days.

She purchased the spacious Clifton Park home for $1.85 million in May 2015, as reported at this site. According to a family friend who helped manage improvements, Sara invested another $2 million into the property, adding a pool, theater, finished basement, art pieces and other amenities.

Map view of Sara Bronfman house
Satellite view of Sara Bronfman’s house for sale, from Google Maps.

The stone-front home is 10,500 square feet, featuring eight bedrooms and seven-and-a-half baths. It’s set on a 4.31-acre lot, which equals the size of 107.25 volleyball courts or a little more than 4 football fields.

By the way, the front is stone but the sides and back are not stone and, based on the picture below, appear to be either wood- or vinyl-sided.

Vinyl is final – but it may be wood that sides the back and sides of Sara Bronfman’s home in Clifton Park.

At $2.85 million, if Sara got the full asking price, she would be losing about $1 million on her investment, if it is true that she spent $2 million in improvements.

Take a Tour of the Sara Bronfman Estate in Clifton Park, New York

A long drive approaches the home and winds around what could be described as a turf-covered privacy pyramid.

Sarah Bronfman Drive
Sara Bronfman’s house in Clifton Park, New York.

 

Aerial View of Sara Bronfman Estate
Aerial view of the for-sale Sara Bronfman property

Clifton Park has an average July high of 83 F, so the inground saltwater pool might see plenty of summertime use.

Sara Bronfman Clifton Park House Inground Pool
The saltwater pool at the for-sale Sara Bronfman estate. Bronfman added the pool along with other improvements.

Upon entering the house, you’ll encounter a foyer that features a life-sized horse-sculpture-cum-lamp.

 

Sarah Bronfman House Clifton Park Foyer
Entrance hall with horse lamp

The living room features a white sculpture over the fireplace, with a golden chandelier above the circular couch with gold upholstery. It’s an inviting place to curl up for some good word salad or, better yet, watch a video of Keith Raniere being interviewed by Allison Mack.

Sara Bronfman Livingroom Circle Couch
Sara Bronfman’s house for sale – living room with a fabulous circular sectional couch.

 

Sara Bronfman living room gold circle couch
Sara Bronfman living room 

What appears to be a media room features black carpeting and black walls.

Sara Bronfman House Media Room
Sara Bronfman’s home theater. The theater with high fidelity sound is an astoundingly good place to watch old Vanguard Week talent night videos.

 

Sara Bronfman media room black carpet black walls
A modest home theater setup

A traditional, homey kitchen serves as the heart of the home. This is the same kitchen Sara once cooked eggs in for New York Times Magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, who wrote an impressive article, Inside Nxivm, the ‘Sex Cult’ That Preached Empowerment, which was published after Raniere’s arrest.

It was one of the few occasions since the Dalia Lama appeared in 2009 that Sara spoke to the media about Nxivm.

Sara Bronfman traditional style kitchen
The kitchen has a traditional style with a touch of Americana

Grigoriadis wrote, “Like Raniere, the Bronfman sisters were seeking to heal familial relationships, particularly with their father, a pillar of New York society and president of the World Jewish Congress. They were also drawn to Raniere’s emphasis on ethics.

“’My whole life growing up, I always wanted to do something to impact the world,’ said Sara, a lovely woman who made me eggs in her Albany-area mansion this winter — the proportions of her home were so preposterous that I felt I had shrunk to a hundredth of my size, like Alice after she drank the potion in Wonderland.

“’My dad, as we were growing up, he was bringing Jews out of Russia, he was taking on the Swiss banks.’ After a friend from Sun Valley recommended the group, then called Executive Success Programs, to Sara, she asked Edgar to take a course, and he liked it.

“’All my dreams of saving the world with my dad were coming true,’ she said.”

The home features both formal and informal dining spaces.

Informal dining area in Sara Bronfman house

 

Formal dining area looks a little spartan. 

A home office/study.

sara bronfman study
Home office

 

sara bronfman living room two story fireplace
A two-story fireplace in this room does little to undo the rather bland decor.

This bedroom is pretty large.

Sara Bronfman house for sale bedroom
What looks to be the master bedroom has a somewhat spartan and traditional style.

A home gym is also pretty large.

Sara Bronfman home gym
The home gym has low-key aesthetics but looks like a functional fitness space.
Sara Bronfman house horse sculptures
Horse sculptures graze among the spartan décor

 

Sara Bronfman bathroom with circular tub
The master bath has a circular tub, a fireplace and natural light

There is also a walk-in shower in the master bathroom.

Master bathroom dressing area
Master bath dressing space and walk-in shower area

Neighborhood / Local Amenities

The stone-front home is not far from Sokolowski’s Greenhouse and Bowman’s Orchard Farmer’s Wagon and not much else.  It is in a town called Clifton Park.

As you can see from the map below, Clifton Park is south of Saratoga Springs, east of Schenectady, north of Troy and Albany, and could be described as part of the Capital Region. The river running south of it is the Mohawk River, and to the east is the Hudson River.

 

Clifton Park is the location of the home at 7 Taymor Trail,

This home, that Sara spent so much to fix up and to make comfortable for herself, her husband and her children, a home she planned to spend most of her life living in, to be nearer her Vanguard, is empty and now for sale.

Her plans changed immensely. After her sister’s arrest, she fled the USA and went to Provence, France. But, her Nxivm past caused trouble there, and she went next to Portugal.

With the sale of this property, the place she once planned to be her home, Sara Bronfman-Igtet is likely concluding her long-time association with Albany. She first came here in 2003.

Target of Civil Lawsuit

Sara is being sued by some 80 former Nxivm members in the Eastern District of New York and has reportedly been transferring her US assets overseas.

She is not known to have visited the USA since before her sister’s arrest in July 2018. And she did not attend any of the federal criminal court hearings for her sister, including the all-important bail hearing and her sentencing hearing.

Sara excused herself from the bail hearing saying she could not travel with her small children. For Clare’s sentencing hearing, she said the pandemic precluded her from travel.

It may be fair to say America has seen the last of Sara Bronfman-Igtet. We may not see her in our midst again.

Sara Bronfman has left and gone away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the author

Anna Mercury

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  • That horse lamp is hideous. Looks like the horse got drunk and decided to wear the shade as a hat. I’d knock a million off just due to that.

  • “She is not known to have visited the USA since before her sister’s arrest in July 2018. And she did not attend any of the federal criminal court hearings for her sister, including the all-important bail hearing and her sentencing hearing.”

    Ignorance proves very costly.

    • I think this was just an extra house, a sort of crash pad for when she was in the area doing NXIVM stuff.

      Raniere probably clipped her for upwards of $50 million of her available money that’s not tied up in old untouchable trust funds, so her involvement crimped her style. and her generation isn’t making wealth, just spending it down — not even managing to preserve it.

  • Imperial settler colonialism and indigenous land theft isnt “making the world a better place”, but it’s in keeping with NXIVM ideology.

  • Katherine, I have some unsolicited feedback for your writing. Please disregard if you aren’t interested!

    You clearly did some research to put this together, so it’s worth looking through your article, but I found the sarcasm, judgment and extra digs about NXIVM/Vanguard Week distracting and even annoying. You can and should write articles with critical comments – maybe consider doing something like how Frank inserts his own comments in a different font/style (bold/italicized or something) to separate your thoughts from the information you’re providing.

    • If only this were the in-house magazine for ‘skyandsun33’ – sigh. It can’t be easy getting reporters to write exactly how you like these days. Without all the old um, inducements.

      • NFW, as a writer myself, I appreciate getting feedback, which is why I offer it to other writers. I mean it is a sign of respect and I assume that the writers on the Frank Report take their craft seriously enough to want feedback (which doesn’t mean they will change their writing, but with feedback, they are informed about how some readers are receiving their writing).

        I’m sorry to Katherine if my feedback came across as the whining of some picky reader who doesn’t like your style… it certainly wasn’t intended as such. I will reiterate that you clearly did research for this article and I will more clearly say THANK YOU for putting the time and effort in. I enjoyed “seeing inside” Sara’s Albany house.

  • Sara Bronfman is a kind person with a good soul who is doing her best to make the world better. A great injustice has been done to her and her sister.

    • Sara Bronfman is a liar, an enabler, and should be in prison with her sister. She didn’t even have the decency to turn up and take the punishment with her, which would have been base-line kind. A fraud and an imposter – no kind of educationalist or teacher, for that claim alone and for the damage she did with Rainbow Cultural Gardens, she’ll get no peace, comfort or kindness in her life. Except from sycophantic fellow travelers of the sick cult she floated and perhaps continues to float.

      You can’t hide from phony-baloney, it stands out like “a life sized indoor horse sculpture with a tiny lampshade coming out of its head.’ [thanks anon@January 16, 2021 at 10:41 am]

  • Proves conclusively that you can’t buy good taste. All the cultists houses I’ve seen look they were thrown together randomly without any attempt at beauty.

  • Clare or Clare’s decorator did a sh*t job decorating her home considering how much money Clare had to play with.

    • For Sara’s home, I’m guessing that the realty company staged the home….nothing matches. The TV in the theater can’t be more than 55″. With Saratoga Race Track 15 minutes away, this is a huge horse community.

  • New YorK State has the some of the highest tax rates in America.
    On top of that Emperor Andrew Cuomo has turned the state into a Clown World with asinine rules and regulations.
    Only a lunatic would want to live in Cuomoland.
    New York State is a good location for NXIVM.

  • I was considering buying a life sized indoor horse sculpture with a tiny lamp shade coming out of it’s head. But then I remembered that I had taste.

      • Shadow what about Klimt “The Kiss?”

        *******

        BTW: If you watch the FOX report video at the top of the article link below…..I would greatly appreciate, sincerely, if you can explain to me what United States Hospitals will do if COViD patients overflow hospitals and there aren’t enough beds for
        non-COVID Hospital cases.

        Are you okay with Triage? Deciding who lives and who dies.

        I honestly would appreciate a response. I am open provided you have an explanation. I switch my mind. I mean it!

        • My mother is an executive with a major chain of hospitals, she tells me gift shops and other such rooms are being converted to ICUs.

          I think those who refused to wear a mask should avoid hospitals or get in the back of the line. The reality is that health professionals have to decide who would survive treatment. The burden is not on them, it’s on a wide swath of people that failed at their jobs and fail their neighbors.

          I’m ok with it, because I check off 3 boxes for not surviving it. I’d rather someone healthier live.

  • From what I hear, the area is a hot market right now for people from New York City looking to move or at least establish a second home, so it ought to sell quickly if priced right.

    The problem with owner improvements and customizations at this luxury property level is that just about every buyer with the kind of money to buy something like that wants a house customized to their own tastes, not that of the previous owner. They will for instance want a kitchen that looks like whatever appeals to them currently in Architectural Digest, and not what Sara wanted 5 years ago; and they may want a lap pool rather than a saltwater pool. So much of what Bronfman sunk money into, will have no value to prospective purchasers, who see them as just things they would need to do over to get what they want. And it’s actually not uncommon in the market for owners like her with multiple properties to have put money into one that they ended up spending little time living in as their life circumstances changed, and end up having to sell at a loss.

    Oh, and besides the decor that looks like it may have been the work of a Nexian wannabe without much actual design talent, is that horse lamp horrendous, or what?

    • Clifton Park is transient. People don’t stay a lifetime. And it’s very over-built now and laid out stupidly.

      3 to 6 months ago, people were flocking upstate. Million-dollar homes flew off the shelf with all that NYC money.

      This says the sale is pending. But things have slowed down.

      • Thanks for that extra bit of detail about the current situation.

        I was thinking that the property was more on the Saratoga Springs side of Clifton Park, which I believe would have made it more desirable as Saratoga is a prestigious destination. But I see now it’s quite the opposite, which could mean that it’s overbuilt for the location, another classic mistake — there’s an old real estate saying that you don’t want to have the most expensive house on the block, the principle being that people in the market for that relatively high end a property, would rather just buy in an area where everything is nicer.

        • Anything in Saratoga County is hot because the tax rate is lower. Personally, I think it’s overbuilt– especially in Clifton Park. I mean, you’re stuck at lights everywhere.

          This house looks beautiful. I’m just saying, since Global Foundries moved in, you have a rotating influx of students.

          The school is a nightmare. Multiple elementary schools, middle and high all on one gigantic campus.

          On the PLUS SIDE, between Starbucks, Uncommon Grounds and Mocha Lisa’s, there’s never a shortage of pretty women. ( Sorry, had too!)

      • I agree with Just Sayin’ that the community is transient — that is due to the school district that ranks very well academically and even more so with its sports programs. However, this house isn’t odd in Clifton Park — there are many multi-million dollar homes throughout the community. Most newer homes start at the low end of $400,000. Many “mansions” are tucked away. In a town of nearly 40,000 residents, you would expect crowded roads, but no one needs to leave town for anything. It’s a great community!

    • AnonyMaker-

      So very true!

      In my town, there is a woman with FU-money, who lives in her mansion-home less than 6 months of the year. Every two years, she guts it with the sole exception, oddly enough, of her bedroom with a dome ceiling.

      Breaking down the simple math, she remodels the home every year on average. Plus she spends over 150k on landscaping even though she is never home because she is constantly traveling. She owns 3 homes in the US.

      Crazy what you can do when you’re beyond rich or wealthy and have FU money.

  • Maybe this was the actual hot-tub Sara Bronfman was caught bang to rights doing the old Dakini in a polka-dot Bikini with the Lama Tenzin in?

    The Dalai Lama was paid a million dollars to persuade him to come. He thought Raniere and Nxivm should come under scrutiny and announced as much publicly. The Dalai was in good faith, he made money for his important cause and represented his principles.

    I don’t see Tibetan Buddhism coming to the rescue of – or indeed advertising the fact of being involved in any way – with Nxivm. I applaud the rather elegant grift carried out by the Saffron-robed ones. I think they got even more from Soka Gakkai.

  • You know when someone leave the room to fart so that no one knew they farted?

    Canadian actress [redacted] was in NXIVM.

  • Sara is one of the most caring people I have met in my life. It is sad to see that she and her family will not be able to enjoy the beautiful home they put together. I hope the new owners are able to enjoy it.

    • What do u think of the people who said she was trafficking women into the US and paying below minimum wage?

  • I would like to make a bid on the black horse sculpture with a lamp sticking out of its head.
    I bid 25 bucks.
    I’m waiting for the coming real estate crash when I can purchase Sara’s shack for a mere 100 Grand.
    I suppose Sara’s house is now as empty as her head.

  • I well remember that visit. Vantard actually wanted to make the best impression by having all of NXIVM out to greet his eminence. All members happily rose in unison to sing ” HELLO DALAI, YES HELLO DALAI”…

  • US justice systems sentenced Clare, Sara´s sister, to far more than the maximum for the charges.
    Even more so Keith´s sentence also was unbelievable.
    Prosecution members and judges, as any citizen, should be brought to trial, accountable for their actions. More so because they are paid by the people.
    To stay away from this corrupt judicial system makes sense, I would do the same.

    • You are using Frank Report for a platform. The Bronfman sisters caused Frank a lot of problems. Do you think Frank deserved it?

  • Leave it to Clare to have a bust of herself in the foyer. Bitch has an ego…

    …Oops! I meant, ‘mare’ has an ego.

  • I generally have a good view about the dalai lama. seeing him spend time with nxiam group speaks of positive intent in my view.

    • I agree it seems the Dalai Lama would support something that was good, why will he bother to go to Albany NY, many people might say its because of money but he receives so much money that he wouldn’t need to go to a ghost town and spend time there. I think he saw value in what these people were doing and he supported it, there must have been good in this company.

      • Weren’t a couple of the Dali lama’s inner circle sexually involved with Keith’s inner circle? And they gave him lots of money. If the money didn’t matter to him, why did he take the money?

        • Psychological and sexual abuse are rampant in Tibetan Buddhism. It’s a topic which gets exactly zero attention from the MSM.

      • I agree Antonia. I also think the Dalai Lama is a very compassionate person, in order to behave this way you also need to have a discerning eye (and mind). It’s very likely there was something he saw that he felt good in supporting.

      • Dalai Lama is very wise and teaches data not emotion and supports Keith. So true! If media was focused on truth and not money and judgement Dalai Lama would have a TV station.

      • How the hell would you know how much money the Dalai receives? Besides, he decided not to come because of the controversy surrounding the group, then the Bronfman sisters flew to Tibet and upped their payment so he came but shortened his stay to less than a day.

        The funny thing is, he told the group to be more transparent, and they only got worse in transparency over the years.

        I bet the Dalai doesn’t even want anyone to talk to him about NXIVM anymore.

  • Some people are just born lucky. The vicious Bronfman sisters seemed to have no humility, they took their unearned power and wielded it like a weapon in order to preserve their positions.

About the Author

Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist.

His work has been cited in hundreds of news outlets, like The New York Times, The Daily Mail, VICE News, CBS News, Fox News, New York Post, New York Daily News, Oxygen, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The Sun, The Times of London, CBS Inside Edition, among many others in all five continents.

His work to expose and take down NXIVM is featured in books like “Captive” by Catherine Oxenberg, “Scarred” by Sarah Edmonson, “The Program” by Toni Natalie, and “NXIVM. La Secta Que Sedujo al Poder en México” by Juan Alberto Vasquez.

Parlato has been prominently featured on HBO’s docuseries “The Vow” and was the lead investigator and coordinating producer for Investigation Discovery’s “The Lost Women of NXIVM.” Parlato was also credited in the Starz docuseries "Seduced" for saving 'slave' women from being branded and escaping the sex-slave cult known as DOS.

Additionally, Parlato’s coverage of the group OneTaste, starting in 2018, helped spark an FBI investigation, which led to indictments of two of its leaders in 2023.

Parlato appeared on the Nancy Grace Show, Beyond the Headlines with Gretchen Carlson, Dr. Oz, American Greed, Dateline NBC, and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, where Parlato conducted the first-ever interview with Keith Raniere after his arrest. This was ironic, as many credit Parlato as one of the primary architects of his arrest and the cratering of the cult he founded.

Parlato is a consulting producer and appears in TNT's The Heiress and the Sex Cult, which premiered on May 22, 2022. Most recently, he consulted and appeared on Tubi's "Branded and Brainwashed: Inside NXIVM," which aired January, 2023.

IMDb — Frank Parlato

Contact Frank with tips or for help.
Phone / Text: (305) 783-7083
Email: frankparlato@gmail.com

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