It was a quiet summer weekend on Manhattan's Upper East Side when an 82-year-old widow

named Irene Silverman disappeared without a trace.

But Irene, the red-headed and flamboyant widow of multi-millionaire real estate broker

Sam Silverman, wasn't your typical little old lady.

She always had something going on.

Irene was tiny, just five feet tall, but she had a big personality.

This was not someone who could disappear quietly.

She was a former ballerina and socialite who always had a house full of people.

When her husband Sam died, he had left Irene the 12,500 square foot mansion at 20 East

65th Street.

It was valued at 7 to 10 million dollars 20 years ago.

This house is extraordinary, a local landmark.

Irene and Sam had no children together, so she broke up the townhouse into several apartments

and she filled the empty rooms with guests.

She charged them around $6,000 per month rent, and she thought of them as her friends.

Over the years, Irene's tenants included artists, celebrities, and creative types, including

British royalty, Daniel Day Lewis, and Chocacan, according to an article in Vanity Fair.

Reading about Irene's townhouse, it seemed like something out of a movie.

It seems like it was an absolutely extraordinary place to live.

Irene also had a staff who were like family to her and a lot of them had worked for her

for years.

She was older, so she pretty much never left home without one of them with her.

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