If at first you don’t succeed, try, try — and try again.

Socialite Libbie Mugrabi’s East End mansion is scheduled to be auctioned off on the steps of Southampton Town Hall next month following failed Hail Mary attempts to sell it through a conventional listing — and in the kind of public spectacle the haute classes of the Hamptons really hate.

The court-ordered sale, with bidding starting at $11 million, is set for Aug. 28. It traces its origin to lawsuits stemming from a $3.5 million loan Mugrabi took out on her 486 Middle Line Highway compound and admittedly never paid. 

The auction of the 7-acre Bridgehampton compound follows Mugrabi’s failed attempts to get back the loan amount, and much more, by selling the estate for its original May list price of $25 million. Not long after that, the asking price lowered to $19 million after two quick price cuts. 

Bidders on the property must pay in cash, take the property as-is and put down at least $2 million as a deposit, according to the auction’s marketing materials.

Mugrabi got the 10,687-square-foot Bridgehampton spread as part of her $100 million divorce settlement with billionaire art collector David Mugrabi five years ago. The split, called one of the nastiest ever in New York, featured an array of accusations, including the pair physically fighting over a $500,000 Keith Haring sculpture.

Mugrabi’s lender agreed to go the auction route rather than seize the property as long as it sold by Aug. 25, with a chunk of the proceeds going to pay off the loan and associated penalties. The accord came after Mugrabi and her attorney vehemently protested the lender buying the property last year for $500 at a Zoom auction, at which it was the only bidder. 

With the sale deadline approaching and no buyers in sight, the lender, affiliated with REO Assets of America, Great Neck, N.Y., is preparing to pull the trigger on the auction — and on Friday put in place the legal machination to do so in the form of the court-ordered sale. This followed obtaining the court’s authorization to conduct the sale, enforcing many legal conditions Mugrabi agreed to try and sell the home herself, and reinforcing barriers that prevent her from further litigation and refusing to leave the home.

The prospective buyers will make their offers “right on the steps” of town hall, said Daniel Russo, a former Suffolk County assistant district attorney who is now a personal injury lawyer. Russo is the auction’s court appointed “referee,” a term for the person who oversees auctions of this type.

The auction would show a rarely seen side of the privacy-obsessed Hamptons, with prospective bidders trundling into the heart of the village for a bidding session where, if tradition holds, Russo will call out the terms of the sale to the prospective buyers, and they will respond with their offers. All this just a stone’s throw from the well-heeled residents and summer visitors who are dining or shopping on Main Street. 

Indeed, a public auction for a luxury address is extremely uncommon in the Hamptons, where properties, if they do have to be disposed of, generally go through private services that use discreet invite-only approaches to heavily vetted buyers, often at the properties themselves.

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty holds the home sale listing.

While Russo serves as auctioneer, lenders also typically hire a service to manage the voluminous administrative work that goes on behind the scenes. Auction.com will handle those tasks as a webservice that also does public, court ordered sales in New York. Daniel Gale realtor Orit Ofir, who holds the original sale listing, is now doing double duty as Auction.com’s point of contact, the site’s marketing materials indicate.

Who gets the lion’s share of auction’s proceeds is not clear. Mugrabi’s attorney, Claude Castro of Castro Law Group, told The Post last month that Mugrabi is holding the deed until a sale is complete. The court order for the auction came through the lender’s attorney, Vallely Mitola Ryan, case filings show.

Castro, who told the court in May 2025 the property was worth “between $10 million and $12 million,” did not return The Post’s request for comment on the auction. Mugrabi, as well as listing agents at Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International, also did not respond.

The Bridgehampton estate was still listed for sale at $19 million as of Sunday evening. It is very unlikely that a buyer will step in at that amount with the property coming to auction for almost 50% less.

“Historically, a court-ordered auction throws a major wrench into someone getting more equity out of the sale,” said attorney Steven Wallace of Wallace Law, who isn’t involved in this proceeding, and whose real estate practice has focused on foreclosures and distressed assets in New York for the past 26 years.