The year’s most expensive sale in New York City took place in August at 220 Central Park South in Midtown, where an expansive duplex in the villa portion of the park-facing condo complex closed at $80 million.
The apartment, occupying the eighth and ninth floors of the 18-story villa building, was sold to an anonymous buyer by an entity linked to Nima Capital, the investment firm founded by Suna Said. A studio in the main tower was also part of the deal.
Other big August closings included the penthouse at the pinnacle of the landmark Woolworth Building in TriBeCa. It sold for $30 million, far less than the $110 million initially sought by the developers six years ago. The buyer was Scott Lynn, an art collector and the founder and chief executive of Masterworks, an art investment platform.
The crown penthouse at the new 20-story condo at 109 East 79th Street also sold, for $35 million, which was the month’s second biggest sale. The full-floor unit has 5,721 square feet, plus an additional 3,666 square feet of outdoor space. The buyer was listed as 79 XTS L.L.C.
Elsewhere downtown, the art director Fabien Baron sold his 19th-century Greenwich Village townhouse, and Daniel S. Glaser, the former head of the insurance services giant Marsh McLennan, bought a duplex in the Flatiron district.
Randy Lerner, the billionaire investor and former owner of the Cleveland Browns football team, purchased the Fifth Avenue duplex of Daniel Humm, a Swiss-born chef and restaurateur.
And in Brooklyn, the award-winning songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, responsible for the catchy “Let it Go” ballad from Disney’s “Frozen,” bought two apartments at a new development in Dumbo. Each came with a parking spot.
The 220 Central Park South duplex purchased for $80 million is currently the priciest sale in the 10-unit building, which sits adjacent to the 70-story main tower. It was first sold for nearly $65.6 million in the fall of 2020.
The new owner’s identity was shielded by the limited liability company 220CPSV8.
The villa apartment measures 7,911 square feet and includes six bedrooms and seven and a half bathrooms. Plus, there are an additional 1,095 square feet of outdoor space, providing up-close Central Park views.
While the sale was the city’s top transaction (so far) in 2023 and the most expensive in its building, it is hardly the biggest sale in the entire limestone complex, located near Columbus Circle. (In fact, it’s just the sixth.) In early 2019, the hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin famously closed on four unfinished floors in the tower, paying almost $240 million, a national record for a single residence.
Speaking of unfinished, the penthouse that sold for $30 million at what is known as the Woolworth Tower Residences, at 2 Park Place, was also a so-called white-box purchase, without interior walls or finishes. Mr. Lynn, its new owner, is currently working on building plans, according to a spokesman for Masterworks, and “expects construction on the property to take three years.”
He’ll certainly have plenty of space to work with (and to showcase his art collection). The unit, known as the Pinnacle Penthouse, is roughly 12,100 square feet, contained within the 1913 neo-Gothic building’s copper peak on the 49th and 50th floors. There’s also a 408-square-foot observatory terrace, providing breathtaking panoramic views of New York City, and it comes with a private elevator.
All 32 units at the top of the 58-story Woolworth Building, named for the discount-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth, have now been sold by the developer, Alchemy Properties. The Pinnacle Penthouse had been listed for as much as $110 million in 2017, but with no takers was reduced over the years, with its most recent price tag at $59 million.
Mr. Baron got $18 million for his townhouse at 55 West Ninth Street, between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in the Greenwich Village Historic District.
The buyer used the limited liability company Rainey Rondellio, registered in Wyoming, in the transaction.
The five-story, 22-foot-wide brick and brownstone townhouse was built around 1840 and fully renovated in a classical and modern aesthetic. The 4,662-square-foot home has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms, along with ample outdoor space, including a meticulously landscaped rear garden off the kitchen (a great place for early fall soirees) and a terrace off the library on the parlor floor.
The spacious living room is anchored by a fireplace, and the primary bedroom suite takes up the entire top floor and features two walk-in closets and a roomy bathroom.
Mr. Baron is the founder of Baron & Baron, a boutique advertising agency specializing in fashion, fragrance and cosmetics luxury brands like Calvin Klein, Fendi and Michael Kors.
In the Flatiron district, at 45 East 22nd Street, a.k.a. the Madison Square Park Tower, Mr. Glaser paid $14.5 million for a duplex — with gorgeous views everywhere. He was president and chief executive of Marsh McLellan until the end of last year.
The 5,866-square-foot apartment has four bedrooms, four full bathrooms and a powder room. A great room on the main floor is equipped with a wet bar and lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that provide sweeping vistas of the city, the East River, and beyond. Even the laundry room and the enormous walk-in closet in the primary bedroom suite have nice views.
The primary suite, which takes up the top level, also features a spalike marble bathroom with heated floors and a separate soaking tub that looks out onto the cityscape. Who needs artwork in this place?
Mr. Lerner, who owned the Cleveland Browns from 2002 to 2012, inheriting the team after the death of his father, paid $17 million for Mr. Humm’s duplex at 40 Fifth Avenue in the heart of Greenwich Village. The neo-Georgian apartment house was built in the late 1920s on the corner of West 11th Street, just a few blocks from Washington Square Park.
Because the property was not listed publicly, there were few details about this co-op apartment, other than the bedroom and bathroom count (five and five and a half).
Mr. Humm, an owner of the highly rated restaurant Eleven Madison Park, earned a tidy profit on the duplex sale, having bought it just a couple of years ago for $14.5 million.
The Lopezes spent a total of $11.3 million for two adjacent apartments at Olympia Dumbo, a new condominium development at 30 Front Street, presumably to combine.
Both units, just blocks from Brooklyn Bridge Park, offer stunning views of the bridge and Manhattan and New York Harbor, along with parking spaces.
The larger of the two apartments, which sold for $7.6 million, extends 2,849 square feet, and contains four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. It also comes with a 404-square foot terrace off the great room.
The other unit, closing at $3.7 million, measures 1,485 square feet, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The songwriting couple will need all the room they can get to display their numerous awards accumulated over the years, including a Grammy and Oscar for “Let it Go” and an Oscar for “Remember Me,” from the animated film “Coco.”
Mr. Lopez is also part of the rarefied EGOT club, winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
