Paul Parmar’s 39,000 Square Foot Mega Mansion Colts Neck, NJ Under Foreclosure

As most of the country struggled with the widening recession in 2008, Paul Parmar, a private-equity investor, said that as one of the super rich, he was continuing to support the economy by spending on luxury cars, homes and jets, without worry about the cost.

In April 2008, he was quoted in a newspaper interview as saying the downturn didn't affect him at all "on a spending level." He said he had recently acquired a $110,000 BMW for his girlfriend, and a Bentley for himself.

Now Mr. Parmar has joined the many homeowners who have faced foreclosure on their properties.

His 32-acre classical-style compound in Colts Neck, N.J., which features a private lake, outdoor pool with beach, an oversize indoor pool and two bowling lanes, has gone through foreclosure proceedings and is scheduled to be auctioned off by the Monmouth County Sheriff on Oct. 31.

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Paul Parmar in 2007.

According to PropertyShark.com, Mr. Parmar owes $26.3 million on the property in Colts Neck, an affluent enclave about 10 miles from the Jersey Shore. The foreclosure case was brought by Deutsche Bank, which held a $23 million mortgage on the compound.

In an email to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Parmar said that he was on the rebound, after certain of his businesses had "run into difficulties."

"In certain cases, the difficulties in my businesses have impacted me personally," he said. "I am working through those issues and expect they will all be resolved favorably." He didn't comment on the foreclosure and declined to elaborate.

Things appeared far rosier for Mr. Parmar in 2008. That spring, he showed off his 39,000-square-foot property on an ABC "Nightline" installment dealing with "recession-proof living." He said he was helping the economy by spending more.

"Yes, what recession," he said in another interview appearing on CNN, speaking as he rode on his private jet.

Calin Onet, an analyst at Propertyshark.com, said that the Parmar foreclosure auction was the largest that the property website has tracked in recent years in New Jersey, based on the size of the lien owed. An auction was held in June in Manhattan for the Sloane Mansion on East 68th Street off Fifth Avenue, which had a lien of $28 million.

Mr. Parmar, known as Parjit Singh Parmar on property deeds, worked for investment firm Paine Webber in the 1990s and left to form his own consulting firm in business strategy and operations. In 2004, he formed a private investment group, known as Pegasus Blue Star Fund, that specializes in acquiring small privately held service businesses.

By 2008, he had investments in a number of private aviation and charter-service companies, several health-care companies, investments in movies as well as his own production company, known as Funky Buddha Media.

His bio on the Pegasus website says he started with no financial backing or family money. He eventually acquired a series of homes, including a 8,900-square-foot house in Florida, and in 2007 bought 140 acres of land in Texas, and said he was spending $20 million to build a refuge there for abused tigers.

Mr. Parmar paid about $2.9 million in 2000 and 2003 to buy two large parcels in Colts Necks, property records show, and he hired a developer to transform them into his elaborate estate.

Robert Hanna, a broker with an estate listing also in Colts Neck for $19.9 million, said that in the current market the Parmar estate might be valued at about $15 million, but bidders might offer far less because of the foreclosure status.

Mr. Parmar had a loss on a home in Florida last year. In 2007, property records show, Mr. Parmar purchased an 8,870-square-foot waterfront home with a 100-foot dock in Pompano Beach for $12 million, including a $9 million mortgage.

He sold it for $3.8 million last fall, and the buyer then immediately flipped it for $5.4 million, according to property records.