A roughly 20,000-square-foot mansion in Washington, D.C., has closed for $18 million, making it the district’s most expensive home sale of 2015, according to the listing agents and real-estate records. Located in the affluent Forest Hills neighborhood, the brick-and-limestone home has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and five half baths; there is also an elevator and a temperature-controlled wine cellar. The nearly 1-acre property, comprised of three lots, includes formal and informal English gardens, a pool, a basketball court and fountains. The seller was Samuel Lehrman, founder of retail development company Lehrco, according to public records. Mr. Lehrman’s family co-founded the Giant Food supermarket chain. He didn't respond to a request for comment. Listing agent Nancy Itteilag, of Long & Foster Real Estate, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, declined to identify the new owner, who paid in cash, but said he was an international buyer. The home was publicly listed for $22 million in April with co-listing agent Kathleen Coumou.
Gallery: Inside Washington, D.C.’s Priciest House Among publicly listed properties, the next most expensive residential sale of the year was a 12,700-square-foot mansion that sold for $12.25 million in October, according to Realtor.com data. (News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal, also owns Realtor.com, the listing website of the National Association of Realtors.) The priciest sale on record was a $24.56 million sale in 2007, according to the MRIS multiple listing service. The end of the year is an active period for luxury real estate, said Ms. Itteilag, who was under the wire to close a number of other high-end sales before New Year. She says many buyers push to close before year-end for tax planning reasons, as well as for job relocations before the first quarter. Write to Stefanos Chen at stefanos.chen@wsj.com This article originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal.