December 1st 2014
Gotham
A BILLIONAIRE ADDS TO HIS TROPHY REAL ESTATE COLLECTION, A TOP MODEL GIVES UP HER CITY PIED-À-TERRE, AND OTHER FABULOUS HOUSING NEWS ALL OVER TOWN.
Among the most talked-about Manhattan real estate deals these days is Ukrainian–born businessman/ billionaire Len Blavatnik’s purchase of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson’s duplex for $80 million, a record price for a New York City co-op. The unit, at 834 Fifth Avenue, is on the 11th and 12th floors and has five bedrooms, five and a half baths, and three maid’s rooms.
Johnson never lived there, but he did use it for fundraisers, as it has great light and gracious entertaining space. Blavatnik already owns some of the best trophy addresses in the city, including the city’s widest mansion—a 75-foot townhouse at 2 East 63rd Street, which housed the New York Academy of Sciences before he bought it for $31.25 million in 2005. The following year, he paid $27 million for a large unit at 998 Fifth Avenue, built by Jackie Kennedy’s grandfather in 1910, and one of the first luxury buildings on Fifth Avenue. That was topped by his $50 million purchase, in 2007, of Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s former townhouse at 15 East 64th Street.
At the Plaza Hotel, Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol, has sold two adjacent units for $38 million. Not bad—considering Fuller bought two units on the ninth floor for $19 million in 2007, then combined them into a 4,641-square-foot, four-bedroom space. Last year, he snatched up another unit—a 1,155-square-foot one-bedroom condo on the same floor for $3.25 million. Charlie Attias of Corcoran (660 Madison Ave., 212-605-9381; corcoran.com) brokered the deal.
Supermodel Elle Macpherson has sold her pied-à-terre on the Upper East Side for $2.4 million. The apartment, at 6 East 68th Street, is a roomy 1,800 square feet and occupies a full floor. Macpherson transformed it from a two-bedroom into a one-bedroom, but the space includes a formal dining room and home office. While the sale leaves Macpherson without a perch in the Big Apple, that could change, her broker, Douglas Elliman’s Leonel Piraino (575 Madison Ave., 212-418-2023; leonelpirainoteam. elliman.com), has said.
In downtown real estate news, financier Mark Zittman and his wife, Noelle, have put their Tribeca mansion on the market for $48 million—double what they paid for it in 2010. At the time, their $24 million purchase price was a downtown record. This will be too, if they get what they are asking. The listing is a co-exclusive between Leonard Steinberg (646-375-1932) and Hervé Senequier (646-780-7594) at Urban Compass (19 Union Square West; urbancompass.com) and Darren Sukenik of Douglas Elliman (690 Washington St.; 212-727-6111; thesukenikteam.elliman.com). The stunning 11,300-square-foot townhouse is an impressive 65 feet wide and comes with an indoor rooftop pool.
Finally, Bethenny Frankel — who will be back for the seventh season of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City—is continuing her house hunt. Frankel currently lives at 195 Hudson Street, which is also home to Jay Z, Beyoncé, and Blue Ivy. What most recently caught her eye was a three-bedroom townhouse at 255 Hudson Street, which was asking $5.25 million earlier this year, but was reduced in October to $4.65 million. Frankel, we hear, loved the townhouse’s 1,466-square-foot garden—bigger than many city apartments!—which comes with a grill and a cedar deck. The listing broker is Jason Haber (451 Columbus Ave.; 212-327-9624; warburgrealty.com) at Warburg.
