Billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin just paid $238 million for a New York City penthouse, breaking the record for the most expensive home ever sold in the US, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The transaction smashed the previous record, set in in 2014 when another hedge-fund manager, Barry Rosenstein, bought a Hamptons home for $137 million, by more than $100 million.

Griffin's new Manhattan penthouse is a massive 23,000-square-foot residence that encompasses floors 50 through 53 at 220 Central Park South, a skyscraper designed by Robert A.M. Stern that's still under construction. The asking price was $250 million, according to The Real Deal.

A spokeswoman for Griffin told The Journal that Griffin, the 50-year-old founder of the hedge fund Citadel, wanted a place to stay in New York as Citadel expands its presence in the city with a new office.

Griffin, worth nearly $9 billion, is the founder of the hedge fund Citadel. Heidi Gutman/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Griffin's New York City purchase is part of a massive real-estate buying spree over the past few years.

Just this week, Forbes reported that Griffin paid $122 million for one of the most expensive homes ever sold in London, a mansion down the street from Buckingham Palace.

Earlier this year, Griffin, who's worth an estimated $8.84 billion, according to Bloomberg, broke a real-estate record in Chicago when he bought several floors of a condominium for $58.75 million, according to The Journal. And back in 2015, he bought a penthouse in Miami Beach for $60 million, breaking the record for the most expensive condo sold in Miami.

Griffin has also reportedly spent nearly $250 million on gathering land on which to build a mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, bringing his real estate spending in the past few years to nearly $750 million.

At Griffin's New York penthouse, his neighbors will include the musician Sting and the hedge-fund manager Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management, who both recently bought units at 220 Central Park West, according to The Journal.

Corcoran agent Deborah Kern represented the developer of 220 Central Park South in the sale to Griffin. Griffin was represented by Tal and Oren Alexander of Douglas Elliman.

Despite the astronomical purchase price, Griffin's New York City pad is not the most expensive real-estate deal in the world.

In 2017, Hong Kong billionaire Yeung Kin-man paid $361 million for a property in Hong Kong's wealthiest and most exclusive neighborhood, The Peak, as Business Insider previously reported. A $446 million house for sale in the same neighborhood could break the record for most expensive home sold in the world.