Thanks to the Facebook IPO, one lucky early investor may finally be able to buy that $50 million Tribeca townhouse he always wanted.
A West Coast-based Facebook insider has flown to New York twice to look at 144 Duane Street, the massive $49.5 million property listed with Prudential Douglas Elliman brokers Matthew Gulker and John Musso, the New York Post reports.
What insider could it be, we wondered? After a brief Facebook and Twitter search, we’re putting our money on Matt Cohler, who tweeted an Instagram photo from New York on April 28, then followed up with a highly-suspicious May 10 tweet, “My soul may belong to New York, but my heart belongs to San Francisco.”
But then again, Drop.io founder and former New Yorker Samuel Lessin has been exiled in California since Facebook bought his company – perhaps he wants to come back to a triumphant Tribeca loft. There’s proof that he has also been in the city recently, posting on Facebook that he was at JFK on May 5 and “coming home in time for dinner.” Plus, Mr. Lessin, who is engaged to Wall Street Joural technology reporter Jessica Vascellaro (that’s cozy!), could also be looking for a love nest where the couple can settle down once they tie the knot.
And then, there’s always perennial favorite Sean Parker, who gained a paper fortune of $2.6 billion in the IPO, or Dustin Moskovitz, now worth $5.1 billion.
Whoever is looking at the property, it’s clearly head and shoulders above Mark Zuckerberg’s $7 million place in Palo Alto.
They’re aren’t many 30,000 square-foot “loft mansions” in Tribeca, after all, and 144 Duane comes with six above-ground floors and two underground ones, with a possibility of renting out two of the floors as upscale rentals (like you need the income if you can afford this place).
Still, they’d make a nice place for Facebook friends to crash for the night, especially when the penthouse’s eight bedrooms are all full. And the new owner will need teammates to play with in the half-court basement basketball court, right?
