By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/05 2:25pm

Manhattan Transfers

It's magical, but not magic.

Steel Magnate Gets A Little (But Just a Little!) Less Greedy at 15 CPW

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. Read More

By Kim Velsey 1/14 3:43pm

Stratospheric Sales

Revealed as the owner of a 40th-floor apartment.

Guess Where Barclays’ Disgraced CEO Bob Diamond Spent His Ill-gotten Gains?

The Observer has spent many an afternoon trying to puzzle out the clues in mysterious LLCs. That is, the LLCs that have clues—those that were not registered in Delaware approximately a month before the real estate purchase they were created to shield, named after the building that they are buying property in, and/or in the care of a huge midtown law firm.

But as real estate chronicler Michael Gross proves in a new Newsweek article, promising clues may well be red herrings. When Novgorod LLC purchased a nine-room spread on the 40th floor of 15 Central Park West in 2009, it was assumed that the buyer was one of the many rich Russians who had been sniffing around the building. Quite possibly a rich Russian with some intense personal or professional connection to the city in whose name he’d purchased a $37 million dollar condo. Read More

By Kim Velsey 11/01/12 11:37am

Manhattan Transfers

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

15 CPW Reasserts Its Real Estate Dominance In a Post Sandy New York

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. Read More

By Kim Velsey 8/10/12 8:30am

Stratospheric Sales

Another $95 million listing.

Another $95 M. Apartment in Manhattan? Yawn.

It’s a little embarrassing, really. A day after 15 Central Park West announced its $95 million listing, 50 Central Park South had to go and announce that it also had a $95 million listing. And they’re even on the same floor (the 35th). But we’re sure that the owner at the Ritz-Carlton had been totally planning to list the apartment for, like, months now, so like, whatever 15 Central Park West.

Anyway, the big takeaway  is that there are now two $95 million apartments on the market, in addition to a $100 million apartment at CitySpire, not to mention the One57 penthouse that sold for somewhere north of $90 million—maybe $95 million!

Because this is the new reality of the trophy property market in Manhattan, as The New York Times, who first reported the listing, claims. Or at least, it is the old reality of really rich people who want to be even richer people and are hoping that slapping a $95 million price tag on their apartment will make it a $95 million apartment. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/27/12 7:16pm

Stratospheric Sales

15 Photos

The highest, high-end condo on the market (literally).

Live Like Zeus: CitySpire Penthouse Would Like Record $100 M., Please

Evidently emboldened by the $88 million sale of the Sandy Weill penthouse at 15 Central Park West and the $90 million penthouse that’s in contract at One57, Long Island real estate developer Steven Klar is angling to get $100 million for his 8,000-square-foot triplex penthouse at CitySpire.

The octagonal condo on the 73rd, 74th and 75th floors of the mixed-use midtown tower at 150 West 56th Street is certainly “one-of-a-kind,” as the Prudential Douglas Elliman listing boasts, but the question remains whether it can best the prices claimed by the premiere units in newer, lovelier buildings. The listing was first reported by The New York Times. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/12/12 11:00am

Manhattan Transfers

7 Photos

Another Audacious Ask

Embattled Italian Mogul Piofrancesco Borghetti Selling Off 15 CPW Spread

Apartment 32C is situated in one of the towers of 15 Central Park West—a lofty, three-bedroom perch from which to view the city, although perhaps not so lofty as the asking price of $27.7 million.

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. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/06/12 11:20am

Skyscraper Living

Nobody knows who'll live here and it's driving us all crazy. (Extell)

Mystery Shoppers: Why Is One57 So Secretive About Its Buyers?

Remember when sales started at 15 Central Park West? And how the buyers were “supposed to be kept secret,” but everyone was too excited to keep quiet and they gossiped like crazy and all the buyers turned out to be really famous, exciting celebrities like Denzel Washington and Sting? Wasn’t that great? We were almost like best friends, us and 15 CPW, whispering late into the night together, swapping secrets.

One57, on the other-hand, is mysterious and distant and never tells us anything, huffs The New York Times in article about how different One57′s approach to publicity is from the good natured and totally cool about everything 15 CPW. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/18/12 3:10pm

Manhattan Transfers

The view from the fourth floor

Absolute Return! Hedge Fund Founder Mitchell Julis Wants $26 M. for 15 CPW Pad, a 152 Percent Profit

With super high-end properties selling like hot cakes, Mitchell Julis and wife Linda clearly thought it was time to get into the action, putting their fourth-floor spread at 15 Central Park West on the market for $26 million.

And while their three-bedroom, 3.5-bath condo may not wow the broken-hearted buyers who missed out on the $52.5 million pad at 740 Park Avenue or the $40 million co-op at 2 East 70th Street, it could certainly be a nice consolation prize. Luxury buyers appear so desperate to fork over their cash these days, what won’t they buy?

And who would be a better judge of when to buy and when to sell than Mr. Julis, the co-founder of Los Angeles-based hedge fund Canyon Capital Advisors? Read More

By Elise Knutsen 3/21/12 12:49pm

Real Estate

She's suing me for how much?

More Rubles, More Problems: The Ongoing Saga of the $88 M. Rybolovlev Apartment

Elena Rybolovleva has an $88 million bee in her bonnet. Mrs. Rybolovleva has locked horns with her husband, Russian oligarch and fertilizer king Dmitry Rybolovev, in a bitter divorce battle, with his reported $9 billion at the center of the fracas. The international battle royale has spilled into New York, where Mrs. Rybolovleva has accused her husband of purchasing Sandy Weill’s prize $88 million condo at 15 Central Park West in an effort to divert funds in advance of the impending divorce. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 11/16/10 10:53pm

House Porn

It’s Free to Look: 15 Central Park West’s Coveted “D” Line

Robert A. M. Stern’s 15 CPW is always making real estate news, from its flamboyant architect to yet another record-breaking sale. Plus the 2006 building boasts that whole best-of-both-worlds vibe, with its perfect mix of prewar and hyper-modern luxury. Plus, star power. The building is constantly raking it in.

Now’s your turn to join the Read More