Mr. Lambert bought 69 East 82nd Street in 1978, two years after he also became a director at Hilton Worldwide. While the deed does not include a purchase price, mortgage documents show he took out a $300,000 loan on the place. Back of the envelope, he turned a profit in the neighborhood of 2,000 percent. (Update: If we're talking rate of return, though, it's a modest 12.5 percent.)

The buyers are W. Dexter Paine III and his wife Susan. He is a former KKR partner who now runs the Bay Area-based Paine & Partners. In January, they sold their two-bedroom pied-à-terre at the Sherry Netherland for $4.495 million to Roberto Moses Thompson Motta, a Brazilian investor on the board of Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The Paines will now be crashing a much bigger pad. The five-story redbrick dynamo has five bedrooms and six baths. A setback on the fourth floor creates the rare street-facing terrace. "Charming and in beautiful condition," writes the pack of Stribling brokers who had the listing: Cornelia Zagat Eland, Alexa Lambert, Emily Hanna and Marc Achilles. The home has been on and off the rental market for $50,000 a month, according to StreetEasy--not long after Mr. Lambert and wife Linda purchased a penthouse at 28 Laight Street for $6.9 million, plus a $207,000 parking space, in December 2006.

Downtown has come of age.

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mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo