Big Ticket | At $70 Million, a Manhattan Co-op Sales Record

13/06/2014
A palatial Fifth Avenue penthouse embraced to the west and south by a wraparound terrace with 100 feet of panoramic Central Park frontage sold for $70 million and, along with breaking a sales record for Manhattan co-ops, was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.
The previous record, $54 million, was set by the entertainment mogul David Geffen’s purchase at 785 Fifth Avenue in 2012.
The 16-room full-floor apartment, PHB, at 960 Fifth Avenue, at East 77th Street, had been the main residence of Edgar M. Bronfman, the chairman of the Seagram Company, for 40 years; Mr. Bronfman died there in December at age 84. Listed at $65 million, the co-op’s sole penthouse inspired a stratospheric bidding war after less than a month on the market. The maintenance charges, billed quarterly to spare residents the inconvenience of having to write a monthly check, are $57,277.50.
Still one of the most selective co-ops on the Upper East Side, 960 Fifth Avenue was once described as “12 mansions built one on top another.” It was designed in 1928 by Warren & Wetmore, one of the primary firms responsible for Grand Central Terminal; the supervisory architects were Cross & Cross and the redoubtable Rosario Candela, whose attentiveness to luxury and thoughtful habit of cloistering private bedroom wings from grand entertainment rooms attracted millionaires in his century and continues to attract billionaires in this one.

The penthouse has five bedrooms, five fireplaces and eight-and-a-half baths. The sprawling 142-by-18-foot south terrace faces 77th Street and accommodates the library and the bedroom wing. The 34-by-21-foot living room, with three sets of French doors that open onto the park-facing west terrace, is flanked by the library on the southwest corner and a formal dining room on the northwest corner. There is a north-facing breakfast room adjacent to the dining room, a 13-by-18-foot kitchen, a butler’s pantry and a staff hall with laundry. The four-room staff suite is a floor below.
The listing brokers were Mary K. Rutherfurd, Alina Pedroso and Leslie R. Coleman of Brown Harris Stevens. The buyers were the Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, the chief executive of Orascom Construction Industries, and his wife, Sherine S. Magar. Their broker declined to be identified. Apparently Mr. Sawiris was sufficiently enamored of the penthouse, sold as is, to offer $5 million above the asking price even without the inclusion of the dining room chandelier and master bedroom mantel (heirlooms of sentimental value) in the all-cash transaction.
Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.

By: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

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