New York City’s biggest closed sale so far this year took place at the Bellemont, a brand-new boutique condominium on the Upper East Side. A penthouse spanning the top four floors of the 13-story limestone building was bought by an anonymous buyer for about $67.9 million.
The megadeal, a combination of two full-floor duplexes, had been in the works months before the condo, at 1165 Madison Avenue and East 86th Street, was completed last year, and became official when the deed was filed last month. It was also the first residence to close in the sold-out building.
This wasn’t the only big penthouse closing in March. At 111 West 57th Street, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row, an anonymous buyer paid $47.2 million for a unit encompassing the 78th floor of the 91-story tower, which is connected to the landmark Steinway Hall. It was a discount, though, from the initial $53.8 million price tag.
Other luxury properties throughout Manhattan closed with sizable reductions, too, though at far lower price points. They included a townhouse where the fashion designer Oleg Cassini had lived in Gramercy Park and a townhouse owned by the stand-up comedian Louis C.K., in Hudson Square. The billionaire investment banker Kenneth Moelis and his wife, Julie Moelis, sold their apartment at the Plaza hotel for less than what they had paid for it 16 years ago.
But the longtime Upper East Side home of Lena Horne was quickly snapped up — and for the asking price. The buyer was Emily Beare, a CORE broker, and her husband, Brian Beare, a watch designer. (And, no, she didn’t have the listing.)
In Greenwich Village, the musicians Elvis Costello and Diana Krall bought a co-op.
The Upper East Side quadruplex combo, which sold for roughly $67.9 million, has a total of 13,000 square feet of interior space and another 2,300 square feet of outdoor terraces, providing scenic views of nearby Central Park.
One of the duplexes, originally listed for $39.7 million, had seven bedrooms and eight and a half bathrooms; the other, listed for $26.5 million, had four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.
The buyer of this mansion in the sky made the purchase through the 1165 Madison PHC-D Trust. Alexa Lambert and Alison Black of Compass were the listing agents.
The building, which has 11 residences in total, all of which are now spoken for, was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects and developed by the Naftali Group. Sales began in the fall of 2021.
The penthouse closing is now the priciest in 2023, far exceeding the $51 million closed sale in January of a penthouse at 443 Greenwich Street in TriBeCa.
The Billionaires’ Row apartment selling for $47.2 million was the third penthouse to close at 111 West 57th Street, which overlooks Central Park near the Avenue of the Americas.
The first two penthouses that had sold were also bought for below sticker price, including the largest, a duplex on the 74th and 75th floors of the tower that was purchased last fall for $50.5 million; its initial price was $57 million. Five more penthouses remain unsold.
Measuring around 6,500 square feet, the recently closed apartment, known as Penthouse 78, has four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms, along with pretty amazing park views.
The new owner — using the limited liability company 111 West 57th Street Real Estate — will also have access to a lengthy list of just-completed amenities. Among them: a double-height fitness center; an 82-foot lap pool with private cabanas, a separate sauna and steam room; a private dining room and catering kitchen; meeting rooms; concierge services; and a porte cochère. In other words, everything you’d find in a typical luxury hotel.
The 1,428-foot tower, designed by SHoP Architects, is one of the tallest residential buildings in the Western Hemisphere, and the skinniest, too. It contains 46 full-floor and duplex residences, while the original landmark Steinway building houses 14 units.
Ms. Horne’s apartment, a one-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op that had served as the singer’s primary residence for several decades, is at 23 East 74th Street and Madison Avenue, a.k.a. the Volney, in the Lenox Hill neighborhood. It was sold by her daughter, the author Gail Lumet Buckley, who had moved into the home after Ms. Horne’s death in 2010. The Beares paid the nearly $2.2 million list price established last October.
The apartment, extending around 2,100 square feet, is actually a combination of two units, a studio and a one-bedroom. Ms. Horne had expanded the living room by removing a bedroom, and in what had been the studio, created an outsize bedroom suite, where there is now a roomy dressing room, a carved-out home office and a marble bathroom.
Ms. Horne had owned four other units at the Volney, using them for storage, office space and guests. She considered her main residence a refuge and would often host dinner parties for friends and fellow entertainers.
At 768 Fifth Avenue, a.k.a. the Plaza Condominium & Residences, Mr. Moelis, the founder of the investment banking firm Moelis & Company, and Ms. Moelis, a philanthropist with her husband, got around $10.8 million for their ninth-floor apartment. They had paid almost $11.3 million for it in 2007 and were seeking as much as $15 million last year.
The apartment contains three bedrooms, three full bathrooms and a great room with comfy window seats that provide treetop views of nearby Central Park. In fact, you can see the park from just about every room.
The buyer used the limited liability company the Plaza 907 in the transaction.
The Oleg Cassini townhouse, at 135 East 19th Street, was sold at auction for $5 million after being foreclosed on last fall following a lengthy dispute between the fashion designer’s heirs. The home had at one time been valued at $15 million.
The four-story brick building, between Irving Place and Third Avenue in Gramercy Park, has roughly 6,800 square feet of interior space. It was built around the turn of the last century and was once known as the Joseph B. Thomas House. In 1910, Thomas, a banker and an avid polo player, transformed the structure into a neo-Gothic style. And in 1966, it was declared a landmark.
Mr. Cassini — a world renowned designer who dressed many famous women, including Jacqueline Kennedy — died in 2006 at the age of 92. He had owned the townhouse for more than half a century.
The new, anonymous owner was listed on the deed under the limited liability companies Gramercy Park 135 and Gramercy Heights Capital.
The townhouse owned by Louis C.K. closed at $5.8 million, which was less than the $6.5 million he had paid for it in 2012. He had initially sought $8.5 million last year.
Situated at 35 Charlton Street, between Varick Street and Avenue of the Americas, the 19th-century brick house extends around 4,800 square feet over four stories. There are five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and lots of outdoor space. This includes a terrace off one of the bedrooms, a deck off the eat-in kitchen, a patio on the garden level and a backyard.
The townhouse sale wasn’t the only real estate loss of late for the comedian born Louis Székely. Last December, he sold a two-bedroom co-op at 101 West 12 Street in Greenwich Village, a.k.a. the John Adams, for $650,000 below the nearly $2.5 million he paid for it in 2016. (He had bought the unit for $550,000 above the asking price.)
Louis C.K. has won several Emmy and Grammy Awards. He came under fire in 2017 after being accused of sexual misconduct by five women, and later confirmed in a show of remorse “these stories are true.”
The buyer of his townhouse was the limited liability company Irish Voyage.
The musical couple Mr. Costello and Ms. Krall paid $1.6 million for an apartment at the John Adams co-op, Louis C.K.’s old building, on the corner of Avenue of the Americas.
Their new home has one bedroom, one full bathroom and nice views of the Empire State Building. The seller was Barbara Steiner.
Mr. Costello used his legal name Declan MacManus in the deal. The Grammy Award-winning singer and producer has a long string of hits, including “Accidents Will Happen” and “Oliver’s Army.” He is currently on a worldwide tour, while Ms. Krall, a Grammy-winning jazz singer, also goes on tour starting this month.
Now they’ll have a cozy new place to come home to when they return later in the year.
And in late-month closings, the historian and arts patron Elizabeth A. Sackler bought a one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom co-op at 1 West 67th Street, near Central Park West, for $3 million. Ms. Sackler, also a social activist, is the benefactor of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. And she is a daughter of Arthur M. Sackler, one of the patriarchs of the Sackler family pharmaceutical dynasty. He died before OxyContin was created by the company, and his side of the family sold his stake in the pharmaceutical business after his death. Ms. Sackler has called the company’s role in the opioid epidemic “morally abhorrent.”
