This week it fell to $7.25 million, less than half of the penthouse's original price.

"I've been through this myself, because I renovated a townhouse downtown and it was my baby," listing broker John McDermott said this week. "It makes you want to have an elevated price, because it means so much to you! It started out, really, too high."

The duplex is owned by Lee Harris Pomeroy, the architect who assembled the apartment himself, and his wife. Mr. Pomeroy wouldn't talk about the duplex's price, but said, "It was made out of a small one-bedroom apartment, and two maid's rooms, and some empty attic space, and roof rights. It was assembled from pieces. You could have assembled a block on 42nd Street easier."

His Web site, which includes huge photos of the duplex, says the apartment includes "the image of Greek goddesses embedded in laminated glass doors," a "Paradisio-inspired walled garden," and new windows "cut through the mansard roof for better park views." In other words, it's the kind of place that doesn't just have a master bedroom suite with two dressing rooms and two marble bathrooms (a Jacuzzi in one, a steam shower in the other), but has a bi-level library where the two floors are divided into "thinking" and "working" areas.

The broker, who happens to own a separate penthouse at the 104-year-old Central Park West apartment house, said that Mr. Pomeroy's duplex almost sold last year for around $15 million. "But the thing is," Mr. McDermott explained, "we didn’t think these people were board-passable."

mabelson@observer.com