Annie Leibovitz is one of the world’s most celebrated and prolific photographers, with a deep portfolio of famous portraits, from John Lennon and Yoko Ono to Michelle Obama. She’s also quite busy in real estate.
In addition to owning a home in Rhinebeck, N.Y., Ms. Leibovitz has bought and sold several properties in Manhattan. Among them, a co-op in Chelsea and a three-building compound she assembled in the West Village in the early 2000s. In 2014, looking to be closer to her children’s school, she purchased a sprawling duplex on the Upper West Side.
But now resettled downtown after buying an apartment on West Street in the West Village just last year, Ms. Leibovitz is putting the duplex at 88 Central Park West, a.k.a. the Brentmore, back on the market. The four-bedroom, three-bathroom co-op is “priced to sell” at $8.6 million, according to the listing broker, Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group, which is well below the nearly $11.3 million she had paid for it. Monthly maintenance is $10,307.
“The apartment is now too big for me,” Ms. Leibovitz, 74, said in an email, adding that her three adult daughters are “building their own lives.”
“I live and work downtown,” she said, “and our house upstate is now our family home.”
The duplex, measuring around 3,500 square feet, sits on the fifth and sixth floors on the north side of the 12-story Brentmore, home to a host of other celebrity residents over the years, including the actor Robert De Niro, the TV producer Lorne Michaels and the musicians Paul Simon and Sting. And like many of the beige-brick building’s 27 other units, it offers picturesque views of the nearby Central Park, a major draw for Ms. Leibovitz.
“When I first walked into the apartment over 10 years ago, beautiful light was pouring into the living room windows from the park,” she said.
After buying the unit, Ms. Leibovitz undertook a number of renovations and updates, making over the kitchen and guest bedroom and bathroom, creating a separate office area, and carving out a library within the living room. Many prewar details also remain, like the 11-foot ceilings, oak floors and moldings.
She decorated the space with an eclectic mix of furnishings and artwork collected over the years, along with a few of her own photographs. Ms. Leibovitz’s critically acclaimed work traverses more than half a century, and includes iconic photos of Queen Elizabeth II, Bruce Springsteen, and a nude John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono, taken just hours before his death in 1980. (She is also the author of several books, among the more recent, “Wonderland,” an anthology of fashion images shot mainly for Vogue.)
The apartment’s entrance is on the lower level. A spacious foyer with a coat room and a curved staircase leads to a 32-by-21-foot living room, large enough to comfortably fit a baby grand piano (which it does). It features a decorative fireplace with a carved wood mantel, built-in bookshelves, beamed ceiling and oversize windows that provide treetop vistas of the park. French and pocket doors open to the dining room, also with park views, along with its original coffered ceiling.
“The entertaining spaces are so elegant and gracious,” Ms. Kern said.
Beyond the dining room is the office, laundry room, guest bedroom with marble bathroom, and the kitchen.
“The kitchen is very much in character with the building,” Ms. Kern said, pointing out the abundant wood cabinetry, marble countertops and subway tile. Ms. Leibovitz also added a center island with an induction cooktop and banquette seating, and there is a separate butler’s pantry for meal prep.
The main bedrooms are upstairs. The 19-by-15-foot primary suite has two closets, one walk-in, and an en suite bathroom with a pair of windows. The other two bedrooms, also with ample closet space, share a bathroom.
Ms. Leibovitz has had fond memories of the Lincoln Square neighborhood. “Central Park would be the girls’ front yard — riding bicycles, ice skating,” she said, adding that “one of my daughters walked across the park to school almost every day.”
And, she noted, “Lincoln Center is right behind us, and the great museums are nearby.”
She has also appreciated her time spent at the Brentmore, which was erected in 1910 on the corner of West 69th Street and converted into a co-op in 1959.
“The Brentmore is understated with great old bones — tall ceilings, big windows,” Ms. Leibovitz said. “There’s a lot of history in the building.”
