Wealthy real estate investor Sam Asgari tried for a year and a half to sell the glittering pier home that belongs to Kevin Spacey.

A sales team gave the house a fancy name, “The Icon of Baltimore,” and made a website with music and videos. It settled on a price of almost $6 million.

It got one showing.

Asgari said he’s giving up and letting the house return to the bank, at a personal loss of about $700,000. This means that after almost three years of litigation — settlement talks, blown deadlines, a buzzy auction on the courthouse steps, even a monthslong fight over the keys — the famous actor, improbably, still owns the house.

Well, for now.

Once pitched as “Baltimore’s most extraordinary home,” the house floats on a pier that stretches into the harbor from Federal Hill in one of the city’s most exclusive gated communities. The 9,000-square-foot home features five floors, five bedrooms, seven full baths, an elevator, sauna, home theater, rooftop terrace and four-car garage.

The property was previously owned by the Merritt family, famous for commercial real estate, construction and gyms. The actor bought it for $5.65 million in early 2017 under the name “Clear Toaster,” just months before he faced the first accusation of sexual misconduct and was fired from “House of Cards.”

Out of work and facing additional allegations of sexual misconduct, Spacey fell behind on his monthly mortgage payments of more than $20,000, according to court records.

The bank foreclosed, and his house was sold at public auction on the Baltimore courthouse steps for $3.24 million in July 2024. Asgari emerged as the man behind the winning bid.

A biomedical engineer turned real estate investor from Bethesda, he previously captured attention for buying the childhood home of Johns Hopkins in Anne Arundel County.

Asgari paid a deposit of about $324,000 for the Spacey home and later replaced the air conditioning. He said the property has cost as much as $30,000 a month to maintain. In the year and a half since the auction, he hasn’t paid the full purchase price. He said that was deliberate as he tried to market the house.

A Baltimore Circuit judge ruled two weeks ago that Asgari has defaulted on the terms of the auction. The judge’s order clears the way for the bank to auction the house all over again. Until then, the house technically belongs to Spacey. There’s no date yet for another auction.

Spacey, meanwhile, has embarked on his Hollywood comeback, living in hotels and Airbnbs as he pursues new roles.

So why didn’t the house sell? Asgari blamed the city, but local real estate agent William Ganz had other ideas. He’s represented buyers and sellers in transactions involving most of the pier homes, even Spacey’s house.

“Having an out-of-town agent representing it, that never seems to work very well,” he said. “It’s a unicorn property. You have to find a specific buyer.”

Indeed, Spacey’s neighbors over the years have included Ravens and Orioles players, as well as prominent doctors and lawyers.

“This is just a bump in the road. It’s too prestigious a property,” Ganz said. “Somebody’s going to get it.”