By Kim Velsey 11/13/12 12:07pm

Manhattan Transfers

Not so intimate.

The Death of a Crazy Dream: Magnificently Complicated Fifth Avenue Spread Is Off the Market

Amassing and connecting a melange of co-op apartments scattered about a coal baron’s Fifth Avenue mansion was an outlandish dream, even for Howard Ronson, the commercial real estate developer who kicked off the buying spree at 828 Fifth Avenue, also known as the Berwind mansion, before his death in 2007.

His heirs tried to carry on, but they could never quite replicate their patriarch’s acquisitive charms. With four of the nine apartments in hand, they stopped far short of Ronson’s goal of total building domination. Nor could they (or would they) sell the spread, at least not for $72 million. After putting the apartment on the market in May, in a bid to catch one of the many over-eager trophy hunters said to be sniffing around New York, the family pulled the property just a few months later. Read More

By Kim Velsey 10/03/12 3:32pm

Manhattan Transfers

The garmento's new living room.

More Closet Space: Fashion Mogul Andrew Rosen Pays $13 M. For Penthouse In the Former St. Vincent’s

While it was rumored earlier this year that Theory honcho Andrew Rosen was paying more than $12.5 million for a four-bedroom penthouse at the St. Vincent condo conversion 130 West 12th Street, now there’s proof. City records show that Mr. Rosen paid $13 million, a bit of a price bump over the $12.8 million that the sponsor unit was asking.

The building has a way of getting buyers to pay more than the retail value. Rosie O’Donnell also plunked down a little extra cash for her duplex penthouse, paying $50,000 above the sticker price. Maybe Mr. Rosen should bring on Stribling brokers Alexa Lambert and Sean Turner to help shill his company’s clothes. Read More

By Max Abelson 7/28/09 10:56pm

Top Brokers Cattle-Called for Madoff

When brokers from the most posh Manhattan brokerages filed into a penthouse at 133 East 64th Street for a secret meeting earlier this month, the fact that the place had been seized two weeks earlier by U.S. marshals from contemporary America’s greatest financial villain was not the only thing on their minds.

What must have Read More