Not quite as magical as Mr. Schecter thought.

As any Times Styles section writer knows, it takes at least three to make a trend, so we guess we can officially call it now: the much-ballyhooed real estate trophy market is over-hyped.

Today, yet another ambitious trophy listing was yanked from the market, slinking away just a few weeks after taking a $10 million price cut. Leroy Schecter's 35th-floor spread at 15 Central Park West, which made such a big show of asking $95 million when it debuted last August, is no longer for sale. And like City Spire and the Woolworth Mansion before it, the 15 CPW departure was not occasioned by a sale.

"The owner finally—he hadn't even seen it during the construction—went to see and he fell in love. He decided he was going to move in," Emily Beare, the CORE broker who had the listing told The Observer. Ms. Beare said that Mr. Schecter had planned to combine his two units for personal use a few years ago, before changing his mind and listing the apartments separately, then as a combo unit when he realized that "people wanted a finished product."

The octogenarian steel magnate may well be suffering from Pygmalion syndrome, though we suspect the de-listing also had something to do with the lack of interest in the condo combo even after the somewhat drastic price cut.

The $100 million City Spire listing, meanwhile, disappeared in January, also not the result of a sale. The broker behind the listing, Raphael De Niro, has remained tight lipped about the owner's decision to de-list. But we'd speculate that after six months, the media, if not the market, finally disabused the owner of the notion that his outdated octagonal lair could fetch even a fraction of that price.

A few weeks ago, the Woolworth Mansion, on the market for $90 million since March 2011, also vanished. Lucille Roberts' heirs, we heard, were planning to live in it themselves for a while. Who could blame them? Though they certainly had seemed eager to turn a profit on the place just a short time earlier, listing the 20,000-square-foot home as a $150,000 a month rental in the fall of 2012.

And while One57 has been reported to have two units in contract for more than $90 million (they have yet to close as Extell's gleaming spire in the sky is still very much under construction), no property has outdone Sanford Weill's $88 million coup—the sale that set off the whole craze in the first place.

To be sure, there is a market for trophies—Steve Wynn bought his grand Ritz Carlton ballroom spread for $70 million last spring and there has been a slew of sales between $20 and $54 million during the last year, but the number of buyers in the market to spend more than $90 million (and their eagerness to snap something, anything, up) appears to have been greatly exaggerated. Even a filthy rich oligarch can't ignore the fact that most sellers weren't asking just double or triple what they'd paid, but many, many multiples more.

Some big listings remain, of course. There's still the $95 million Ritz Carlton penthouse, also listed since last spring, and the $95 million penthouse at the Sherry-Netherland (terraces galore, but also a co-op board to contend with), on the market since the fall.

And this spring brought a new crop of super-luxury listings even more ambitious than their peers: the $125 million Pierre penthouse and embattled hedge-fund honcho Steve Cohen's $115 million One Beacon Court spread.

Were the owners unmoved by the troubles of trophy spreads that had tried, and failed, before? Did they simply think that by tacking an extra $20 million or $35 million on they'd be able to avoid the pitfalls of their less ambitious predecessors? We're not sure, but given the mounting evidence, they may want to reconsider.

It's magical, but not magic.

Given the massive profits that many early buyers at 15 Central Park West made flipping their units, it sometimes feels like no price is too high for an apartment in New York's newest pre-war building.

Well, it looks like steel magnate Leroy Schecter has finally learned how much is too much: $95 million.

Mr. Schecter just cut a whopping—or, at least, it would be whopping in any other building—$10 million from the ask on his 35th-story apartment, to a still-stratospheric $85 million, which would put it below the $88 million record price that Dmitri Rybolovlev paid for Sandy Weill's penthouse.

But can it sell? Besides the units in contract at One57, no sale has actually closed for anything approaching the price that Mr. Rybolovlev paid back in 2011, though there have been plenty of contenders—ranging from the laughable ($100 million for the penthouse at the '80s-errific CitySpire Center) to the slightly more realistic ($125 million for the triplex penthouse at the Pierre).

The unit is a combo—"the building's only post-construction combination unit," reads the listing—though it's still smaller—20 percent smaller—than Mr. Weill's old digs.

But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in views. Mr. Weill's unit was on the shorter tower—sorry, "the house"—which meant it had only (only!) views of the park. Mr. Schecter's apartment, on the other hand, is located in the main tower on Broadway, meaning the non-master bedrooms have Hudson River views in addition to the park views of the master bedroom, library, living and dining rooms.

The apartment also has, for some reason, two laundry rooms. (No word on what kind of views those have.)

Emily Beare at CORE has the listing. As Ms. Beare did not return a request for comment, we’re not sure what inspired the slight price decrease, but we doubt it indicates a great deal of flexibility. Although Mr. Schecter paid just $18.9 million for the two apartments, he walked away from a $48 million offer for the two unconnected units in 2010—an offer that seems entirely reasonable given that he had been asking $55 million back then.

In the meantime, the magnate is occupying himself with the overhaul of the Rothschild mansion, which he paid $25 million for last October. God knows what he’ll ask for that when he gets done.

The condo is a grand 1,916 square feet and it's relatively far from the Hudson.

Will Hurricane Sandy have a negative impact on Manhattan's luxury real estate market? A brand new listing at 15 Central Park West doesn't think so. The listing for the two-bedroom, 2.5-bath condo went live today, asking what has now become de rigueur in that celebrated building: twice the price the current owner paid.

Yes, No. 16L, purchased the sponsor unit in 2008 by Kalawati Company LLC for $4.7 million is now asking $8.5 million.

"It has a beautiful open city view. It's just a beautiful apartment and apartments in this building rarely come on the market." said Sotheby's broker Hideko Horiguchi, who has the listing with her colleague Mika Sakamoto.

Marble, Miele, and best of all, electricity.

We asked if the owner had decided to list the apartment when the hurricane hit, but Ms. Horiguchi assured us that she and Ms. Sakamoto got the listing right before the storm, but couldn't put it into the system until now.

The Upper West Side looks more appealing than ever after its admirable weathering of Sandy. Unfortunately, refugees from Tribeca lofts won't be able to take up residence immediately in this condo: Ms. Horiguchi tells us that there's a tenant in place so it's either a long-term investment property or a short-term one for the buyer eager to move-in when the renters' lease is up.

Amazingly, the apartment is the cheapest unit in the building right now by $1.5 million. FaceMate founder Christina Bloom is asking $10 million for her two-bedroom on the third floor. And this unit boasts more than a view of the courtyard with its 16th-floor vantage point (unfortunately, not one of the park). It also ticks all the obligatory luxury boxes: generous walk-in and custom-built wall closet, an Italian marble bathroom with double vanity and soaking tub, plus a gourmet kitchen with Sub Zero and Miele.

kvelsey@observer.com

Whatever happened to soul mates? Well, as Ms. Bloom writes about Find Your FaceMate "no matter how attentive, loving and kind a new partner might be, if he or she is not a facial feature match, it’s unlikely you will have the attraction necessary to take your mind off a previous love and offer the possibility of new love." Intrigued? You can watch her talking more about this technology in her 15 CPW kitchen.

Anyway, onto the apartment.Turns out building break-ups end a lot more amiably than divorces, or at least, Ms. Bloom's will if she manages to sell the apartment she spent $4.98 million on for a whopping $10 million. We suppose Ms. Bloom is betting that this apartment will be the love of someone's life, someone who looks at the bookshelf lined galley or the herringbone hardwood floors and thinks, "c'est moi!" And if that fails, there's always a good view of the courtyard and reflecting pool for the true Narcissists. Then again, such charms have not succeeded in drawing any buyers in the past.

But there's still plenty to like for the right buyer. The apartment may be on a lower floor of "the most significant residential address in New York City," as the listing, held by Nestseekers brokers Ryan Serhant, Samuel DeFranceschi and Nick Jabbour boasts, but it has great light and it's more than 2,100 square feet.

Plus, the master bathroom has all sorts of nice features—lots of mirrors, soft diffused in-wall lighting, a marble soaking tub and a separate vanity space so that you can be sure to look your best for when you meet your facemate.

kvelsey@observer.com

Besides marble in such abundance that our head was soon swimming, there is a Jacuzzi, media systems and an aroma/chroma-therapy steam shower—a set-up where you can add essential oils to the showerhead, then watch a kind of light show as you shower to regulate your moods.

But you know who did know all about these things? The owner, Neil Witriol, the retired president of steam bath and shower company Steamist West. Naturally, Mr. Witriol thought that such features belonged in his five-bathroom condo, now listed for $44 million with Sotheby's broker Roberta Golubock.

But apparently, not even the perfect bathroom(s) were enough to keep Mr. Witriol, who apparently decided that it was time to make a splash in the current trophy market by asking more than double what he paid for the units a few years back. Public records show that Mr. Witriol bought 24A, a sponsor unit, for $7.8 million in 2008. Then he bought 24B from his neighbor for $8.8 million in 2010, paying a total of $16.6 million. Although he did do a gut reno to combine the two apartments, according to The Wall Street Journal, which also wrote about the sale.

The ask, while ambitious, is at least in the vicinity of what other resales in the building have commanded. Unlike the $95 million listing on the 35th floor, which involves the combination of two units purchased for a total of $18.8 million. Even Sandy Weill's spectacular $88 million sale in the building, the benchmark which all other trophies seem to be using these days, was a little less than double the $43.7 million that Mr. Weill paid. And he also did a renovation.

In any event, Mr. Witriol's "captivating tower combination" joins the ranks of listings at the famed building. There's the place on the 32nd floor that wants $27.7 million, for example, and a 4th-floor spread that would like  $26 million. That's a lot of trophies for one building. But at least buyers will really be able to shop around for the best value.

kvelsey@observer.com

Oaktree Capital's Howard Marks bought his Ritz Carlton pad for $18.8 million in 2007. Now he's asking $50 million. The excuse? A stunning renovation.

The paint had scarcely dried at 15 Central Park West before the building’s first residents set to knocking down the walls and stripping out the ultra-luxury condo's ultra-luxurious finishes. Not that the finishes were lacking—like the layouts, they were widely considered to be exquisite—a stunning marriage of old-fashioned grandeur and modern sensibilities. In fact, ex-Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill thought that architect Robert A.M. Stern had done such a fine job designing the building that he hired him to do a massive renovation on his brand new, $43.7 million penthouse.

In the upper echelons of Manhattan real estate, the pursuit of perfection is as common as Sub-Zero refrigerators and private elevator landings. Haunted by dreams of what could be, owners are forever tearing magnificent properties apart in the hopes of transforming them into even more magnificent properties.

Such dreams often pay off handsomely. To wit, Mr. Weill’s freshly-renovated penthouse was so striking that it fetched $88 million shortly after completion. But of course, it would surprise no one, particularly not Nicholas S.G. Stern, son of A.M. and the owner of boutique construction concern Stern Projects LLC., if the Russian tycoon who bought the celebrated spread started his own renovation any day now.

"If you have an extraordinary property, with unique features—location, terraces—and you put in a great deal of money to enlist a top-end architect, that's when an apartment turns into a trophy," said Mr. Stern, who is an experienced polisher of such trophies. With the collaboration of architects, interior decorators and a small army of craftsmen, Mr. Stern has turned both gutted apartments into pristine spaces and already pristine spaces into different, possibly more pristine spaces. His handiwork includes not only the penthouse at the Ritz Carlton (listed for $95 million), but also a downstairs spread listed for $50 million. At the moment, he is in the process of transforming two thirty-fifth floor apartments at 15 CPW into a single, sprawling gem with a $95 million price tag. "By giving it the royal treatment, you are, in fact, legitimizing it as a property in this uber-arena,” Mr. Stern explained.

Remodeling has always been popular among those with means, of course, but while it once took the form of fresh chintz patterns, these days it often hews closer to gut renovations.

“I’ve been in lots of places where they’ve spent gazillions to renovate and the next buyer comes in and totally redoes it,” said appraisal guru Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel. “On one hand, what makes these properties trophies is the fact that they’re done. But then they’re gut renovated or totally redone to suit the new owners’ taste. It’s a strange dynamic, but right now that’s the very top of the market. Clearly people are willing to pay a premium for a home that’s finished.”

Brown Harris Stevens broker Paula Del Nunzio said that one of her renovated listings in 15 CPW sold for several million more than a nearby apartment in the same line.

“A renovation can add a great deal of value if it’s done in a classic manner that would appeal to an international standard of taste,” she said, adding a word of warning: “no idiosyncratic features designed to the taste of just one owner.”

Besides the thrill of winning a prized pad, there is a practical component to buying a newly-renovated home—even if it isn’t the next buyer’s idea of exquisite, it is likely closer than the unrenovated alternative. And certainly, there is a comfort in knowing that one could move in, if compelled by necessity, with only an interior decorator in tow. Renovations do require a significant investment of time and money, particularly with summer work hours, the limited window that many co-ops restrict construction to, forcing homeowners to wait out the other three seasons idly.

“A renovated apartment holds a great deal of attraction—we live in a city where it takes six weeks to upholster a pillow,” said Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger. “A renovation really takes at the bare minimum six months and a good renovation can take 18 months.”

Mr. Burger also confided that buyers might want to avoid undertaking a massive renovation as they are widely known to “take a bit of a toll on relationships”—a phenomenon that Mr. Miller also remarked on. “Eighty to ninety percent of the divorce-related appraisals I’ve done are in the middle of a renovation,” he told us. “And if it’s not the Manhattan apartment, it’s the house in the Hamptons.”

We shuddered, along with Mr. Miller, at the thought of trying to sell a partially-renovated home in the midst of a divorce. And we couldn’t help but wonder—why would anyone spend months and wads of money, not to mention risk their marriage, to re-do an apartment that had literally just been redone?

“It’s the dream,” he responded. And sometimes it’s the nightmare. Renovations done by the former owners can be, well, infelicitous to put it mildly.

Mr. Stern, for one, admits to having seen some questionable aesthetic choices. What you might call distinct, but not distinctive.  Not that taste has anything to do with his job, he added—his role is to make sure that the client’s vision is assembled beautifully. No matter how hideous that vision might be.

“Certainly I’ve seen things that that I would not encourage my friends to live in,” he said. “This is the world we live in; there’s no limit to bad taste. And this is New York—there is always someone who will hold your hand while you throw money out a window.”

kvelsey@observer.com

It was perhaps that particular flavor of confidence that spurred Mr. Evans to forgo 15 Central Park West, which Mr. Blankfein calls home, and strike out on his own in an 8,360-square foot condominium on the top floor of 995 Fifth Ave. According to The New York Post:

Evans, an Olympic gold medalist for Canada in rowing, was highly visible at charity events in April. At one he paid $22,000 for Eric Ripert to cook in his home—in the same week that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that the board has a successor in mind but hasn’t told the person yet. And we’re told that the chatter in the broker industry is that Evans deliberately decided not to look at apartments at 15 Central Park West—where Blankfein lives.

Mr. Evans new abode, which features a 42-foot-long great room, a six-room bedroom suite and nine-and-a-half baths, sold for $27.5 million, which, we might add, is more than the $26 million Mr. Blankfein paid for his duplex at 15 Central Park West in 2010.

More, more, more!

So many of 15 Central Park West's residents have flipped their apartments for such massive sums that it sometimes seems like the whole building is cheating at tiddlywinks with the New York real estate market. Especially after the $88 million sale of Sandy Weill's apartment, residents might be forgiven when they list their apartments for prices that seem somewhat deluded. Still, Leroy Schecter's bid to make $40 million for tearing down a wall seems straight-up delusional.

The octogenarian steel magnate is aiming to break sales records and pocket tens of millions of dollars by conjoining two 35th-floor apartments that he paid a total of $18.9 million for, The Wall Street Journal reports. The asking price? $95 million.

If you think that's audacious, consider, also, that Mr. Schecter's apartment is 20 percent smaller than Mr. Weill's and that he listed the same two apartments—unconnected—for $55 million in 2010. Mr. Schecter told The Journal that he walked away from a $48 million offer for the duo back then, apparently feeling that two and a half times what he paid for the units was simply not enough.

Are there really buyers out there who hate the idea of undertaking (or more accurately, supervising) a renovation so much that they're willing to pay a premium of $40 million to have someone else do it for them? Although combined apartments are traditionally worth more than two separate apartments—a phenomenon appraisal guru Jonathan Miller refers to as the 1+1 = 2.5 principle—a $95 million ask far exceeds that rule.

But Mr. Schecter tells The Journal that he is not worried.

"Nobody knows what the right price is," he said. "If you had $10 billion and you are trying to put in a good place, you aren't going to put it in a bank, you are going to try to buy good real estate with it."

While Dmitri Ryboloblev's $88 million purchase has been an inspiration to so many of the city's most avaricious property owners (ahem, CitySpire) it's far from clear that the sale has ushered in a new era of astronomically high gets so much as an era of astronomically high asks. After all, rumors abound that Mr. Ryboloblev's cavalier way with a checkbook may have had more to do with keeping money from his soon-to-be ex-wife than anything else. The realities of the fertilizer king's divorce notwithstanding, the one-off nature of his big, big buy would seem to be borne out by the fact that the other trophy sales during the last six months have been in the $50 million-to-$70 million range.

But nothing wrong with a little ambition, right? Apparently, Emily Beare, Mr. Schecter's broker at CORE, didn't see any reason to dissuade him from a $95 million ask. If the place doesn't sell, he can always try to set rental records (Mr. Schecter once collected $70,000 a month in rent from the two units—leased to A-Rod and Henry Silverman, the founder of Cendant Corp).

And even as Mr. Schecter licks his lips at the prospect of making a $76 million profit, he's always thinking of the little guy. A least a little bit. He tells The Journal that a portion of the proceeds from the sale will go toward his charitable foundation, which is planning to help people living in poverty in the New York area. By contrast, Sandy Weill claims (!) to have given all the money from his place to charity. What noblesse oblige!

kvelsey@observer.com

Italian business bigwig Piofrancesco Borghetti, who serves as chairman of the board at Marbert Holding AG and a handful of other powerful companies, bought the spread for just $9.8 million in 2008, according to city records.

It seems he may be selling for more than just the chance to take advantage of a good market: The Real Deal has noted that he has been charged with crimes in Italy, including embezzling 19 million euros and making fraudulent bankruptcy claims. We guess he could use the money from the sale and, encouraged by his upstairs neighbors' ability to more than double their money with the sale of a 37th-floor 3-bedroom condo, Mr. Borghetti apparently saw no reason not to go for triple. He's angling for a little more than $10,000 a square foot (the apartment is a relatively diminutive 2,761-square feet), but he just might get it. One57 may be rising fast, but for the moment 15 CPW remains the brightest star in the sky.

"It's the only apartment available in the tower right now," said Brown Harris Stevens listing broker Paula Del Nunzio. "It has totally unencumbered East and West views, with three rooms over the park."

The living room faces East, overlooking the park, as does the 20-foot library and one of the bedrooms, which goes to the early riser in the family.

The master bedroom (tailored walk-in closets and dressing area, Calacatta marble-clad master bath) is perfect for the late sleeper, as it looks West over the Hudson River.

Ms. Del Nunzio noted that apartments in the C-line are "really gorgeous" and often fetch a premium, even by 15 CPW standards. And while she didn't want to be negative, she added that "some of the other corner apartments face into the interior, or other buildings."

With this listing coming on the heels of the $50 million listing at the Ritz-Carlton, we couldn't help but wonder if the luxury market would ever slow from the frenzied pace it's maintained since spring.

"It's impossible to predict the future," Ms. Del Nunzio said. "But if the past is any prologue, it seems that there is a certain niche of buyer that feels New York is a particularly good place to make a purchase."

kvelsey@observer.com

The Ritz's Big Hope: Howard Marks $50 M. apartment.

Let's face it: prices at the Ritz-Carlton, while resplendent, pale in comparison to the blindingly spectacular sales at buildings like 15 Central Park West and the Plaza. But with the $70 million Steve Wynn buy behind it and a new $50 million listing, The Wall Street Journal asks: is the Ritz ready to rise again?

It's not as if the building has been doing shabbily or anything, but it hasn't been the brightest star in the sky, The Journal notes. Built in 1930 as the Hotel St. Moritz, it's lost some of the luster it once had and its debut on the luxury market was less than stellar. The condo conversion finished shortly after Sept. 11, and then the building got kind of eclipsed by the Time Warner Center and 15 Central Park West.

And yet, with the luxury market going bananas and the Steve Wynn sale and the new listing, maybe the Ritz-Carlton's time is here at last?

In any event, such speculations are a good excuse to focus on the massively expensive apartment listing of Oaktree Capital chief Howard Marks and wife Nancy, who just left the building for the super-selective corridors of 740 Park Avenue. (Not just any casino king or media mogul can buy at 740 Park, you know.) And apparently, the couple is hoping to finance their new $52.5 million apartment with the sale of their old one. At $50 million, they're certainly asking far more than they paid for it in 2007—a mere $18.8 million!

They've done extensive renovation work, of course. Now there's "stucco veneziano and a parquet de Versailles-patterned floor of German silver, hand-hammered over wood," and "a library inspired by Coco Chanel's famous Paris apartment is fitted with 18th century Chinese lacquer panels," according to the listing held by Sotheby's broker Roberta Golubock.

"They recreated the perfect apartment with 92-feet on Central Park," Ms. Golubock told The Journal. "A buyer could easily step off the elevator and move in with just with a toothbrush."

That would be a gold-plated toothbrush.

Still, even with a $50 million listing and and a $70 million sale, the Ritz-Carlton doesn't stand a chance of taking down 15 CPW. After all, $70 million is very, very impressive, but an $88 million, record-breaking sale is much, much more impressive. And Sandy Weill got every cent he had asked for, while Mr. Wynn managed to shave a full $7 million off the ask. Besides, the Ritz-Carlton shouldn't get its hopes up because soon One57 will literally overshadow all the other apartment buildings.

kvelsey@observer.com