New York City: Nicolas Sarkozy's Brother Selling Town House for $11.95M

French president Nicolas Sarkozy may be the more famous Sarkozy brother, but his younger half-brother Olivier Sarkozy is certainly the more moneyed one. Olivier -- or Oliver, as he is known in the U.S. -- is managing director and head of global financial services for the Carlyle Group. Opting for a more downtown Manhattan location, he recently put his uptown townhouse at 407 E. 75th St. on the market for $11.95 million.

That's close to double what he paid back in 2005 when he and his now soon-to-be ex-wife, Charlotte, pictured left, bought the place at $6.75 million for their family.

So where does the French-American finance dude get off adding on an extra 5 million bones to the price tag during a real estate slump?

Well, first of all this isn't your run-of-the-mill, out-of-the-way Upper East Side lair. The Sarkozy pad was previously the famed and fabled former home of fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon. The iconic photographer spent over 30 years living and working in the four-story, 8,475-square-foot pad until his death in 2004. The Sarkozys purchased the home a year later, doling out an additional $2 million for custom renovations on the upper three levels.

As art aficionados they opted to respect the greatness of Avedon's career and kept his studio and darkroom intact.