Sundae in the Park! But $15 M. Becomes $11.9 M. at Cantor Co-op

Max Abelson — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:34:18 -0400

It's easy to snicker about the tectonic prices paid for eight-room, three-terrace penthouses before the market’s inevitable downfall, unless you’re one of the penthouse owners who bought at the peak of the market. But Iris Cantor, the arts philanthropist whose late husband co-founded Cantor Fitzgerald, is unruffled.

In May 2006, she spent about $15 million on a 3,906-square-foot, four-bedroom penthouse at 110 Central Park South, a co-op that had once been the hotel Navarro. By November, the apartment was on the market with A. Larry Kaiser IV for $18.95 million.

By May 2008, the price was lowered to $16 million.

And last week, according to the listing with Mr. Kaiser and Craig Dix, her price came down to $11.9 million. “I want to be realistic,” she told Mr. Kaiser. “I love the apartment, but I decided not to move in, and somebody’s going to have a beautiful residence.”

The co-op, where Ms. Cantor has never spent the night, is entirely empty. “It’s mint! Vanilla,” Mr. Kaiser said this week. “Some people like vanilla and some like frosting and sprinkles. You bring your own sprinkles and it becomes a wonderful sundae.”

Does it bother Ms. Cantor that she’ll be losing millions on an apartment? “You know something,” her broker said, “one moves on with life. Everybody likes to make money, but you become realistic. The market is not what it used to be.” (On the bright side, she has an eight-bedroom, 21-bathroom, 12-fireplace Bel-Air mansion on the market for $53 million.)

Meanwhile, on another side of the park, zinc magnate Bill Flaherty and Tina Santi Flaherty, who has written books like The Savvy Woman’s Success Bible and Talk Your Way to the Top, cut the price of their 1040 Fifth Avenue penthouse from $43 million to $32 million late last week. Ms. Flaherty and the listing broker, Leighton Candler, did not return messages.

“I’m like Scarlett O’Hara. The land—the apartment—means a lot to me,” Ms. Flaherty told The Observer last year. “I even have a dog named Scarlett, just like Scarlett O’Hara. I’m just as persistent and everything else.”

mabelson@observer.com

Observer » Sundae in the Park! But $15 M. Becomes $11.9 M. at Cantor Co-op

Sundae in the Park! But $15 M. Becomes $11.9 M. at Cantor Co-op