One of The New Yorker's recently anointed prodigies, Ms. Freudenberger (35, by the way), is the daughter of TV writer Daniel Freudenberger and married to architect Paul Logan, 10 years her senior. The two have purchased the home, recently renovated by its current owner, Michael Terry, featuring a Roman archway, walk-in rain shower, skylights, a rooftop deck and a BBQ.

A writer who worked for The New Yorker at the tender age of 26 and is now in possession of a stunning 1887 townhouse with proper running water? The Observer is more than a little jealous.

--The rumored Bronfman buy at 810 Fifth Avenue is official. Charles Bronfman has bought businessman Eugene Ribakoff's grand sixth-floor unit for $21 million--exactly what he was said to have paid. That's still well below the original asking price of $25.5 million. But with one of the city's more expensive units finally off the market after nearly two years, we won't hear much complaining. Could this spell good news for the storied Nelson Rockefeller unit upstairs?

--Pharmaceutical exec Robert Karr and his wife, Suzanne, have sold their third-floor apartment at 300 West End Avenue for $5.75 million. The buyers are Alleghany head and AllianceBernstein director Weston Hicks, and wife, Ann.

--Former City Council member and 2010 comptroller candidate David Yassky's campaign manager just sold her third-floor unit at 45 East 85th Street for $3.225 million. Cathy M. Toren is now a director of development at the Brennan Center for Justice. Three relatives are also listed on the deed.

lkusisto@observer.com

He wasn't alone. Last fall, when Mr. Taubman's firm declared the building finished, sources say, not a single apartment had a light fixture or a toilet.

Located in a building on the corner of East 65th Street, and with 50 feet of frontage on Central Park, these 10 apartments are not the kind of "raw loft spaces" that have been making headlines in Tribeca or Soho. In fact, say brokers, the whole idea of building raw space to sell is a very uptown idea–one that only the very rich would consider nowadays.

There are different levels of "raw." There's the totally raw space, where windows, perhaps floors and maybe even electricity, water and gas lines are brought in. (Brokers prefer to call these "white boxes": a fresh coat of paint makes them more presentable to buyers.) Then there are "semi-finished" spaces: They may have kitchens and bathrooms with high-end finishes, or they may have only stand-ins, built to bring a new space up to code before sale, but with the understanding that the fixtures will be ripped out and replaced by the new owners.

The market for the rawest of these spaces–apartments without even a kitchen sink–is getting narrow enough that some brokerages won't go near them, and so developers are restrategizing in order to sell them.

For instance, at the Atalanta in Tribeca, the developers are marketing medium-sized raw spaces for buyers in the $1.5 million to $7 million range. But it seems that at the lower end of that range, there aren't buyers–or not nearly enough of them. For a buyer in that range, marketers and developers are learning, finishing the space themselves is too expensive. "What we're really talking about here is price sensitivity," said Deborah Beck, executive vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the trade organization for the industry. "People who are price-sensitive are looking for certainty, and they probably are less attracted to something open-ended."

The "white box" seems to have passed through its moment of giddy popularity, and sober reflections on the vagaries of selling raw space to all but the super-rich are more the norm among brokers now. With all the questions lately about where consumer confidence is going, several brokers said, it can be hard to say whether a raw-delivery strategy will work for a given development. Could the fix-'er-up tolerance of buyers have gone out the window with the value of tech stocks? "Right now we're at a funny point economically, and there's been a little pullback," said Ms. Beck. "For the vast majority of people buying apartments and even townhouses, they're looking for something that's maybe a paint job or a floor scraping, but that they can move into."

The "white box" buyer, brokers say, may be someone who's already built a home in the Hamptons, Colorado or Tuscany; they know what they want, what they're getting into–and they will pay any price for it, often upwards of $1,000 a square foot. "There's a limit to the amount of people that are willing to undergo that," the broker said. "So it's incredibly important for developers to select the right project [for raw delivery]."

Some other brokers are taking an even harder line. At the Corcoran Group, which has represented several such developments, chief executive Pam Liebman said the firm is not representing any new raw developments. "We tend to advise the developers that there's more bang for the buck if they build out," she said, referring to an apartment that has, at a minimum, a kitchen and bathrooms. "As markets get tougher, 'white boxes' will get more difficult to sell."

At 30 Crosby Street, Corcoran tried to split the difference between the raw and the finished. "It was semi-finished, with floors, a kitchen and bath," said Ms. Liebman. "What we tried to do is take away the rough stuff, so the person was able to come in and do their own build-out of fixtures and drywalling." All but one of the 13 apartments at the Crosby were spoken for in eight months.

The verdict from brokers about selling raw space is mixed. But all agree on one thing: It is a risk that can be taken only at the highest-end developments–and then only with caution. Jan Hashey, a broker for Douglas Elliman who is now marketing raw space at City Prairie, a development at 17th Street and Seventh Avenue, has been pitching raw space in rehabbed buildings for more than 10 years. One of the things that attracted her to City Prairie, she said, was the rare L-shape of the property, which provides multiple exposures even on the lower floors, where prices are traditionally lower. That, she said, has allowed her to generate interest for lower-floor lofts without having to build them out.

But though City Prairie rates as a development that can be marketed raw, Ms. Hashey cautioned, it is increasingly rare that a building can pull that off, except with its most exceptional apartments.

The Atalanta, at 25 N. Moore Street, has become the canary in the gold mine for brokers who are advising developers of converted space downtown whether to include raw space in their business plans. The building came on the market last May, when no fewer than 12 developments were going up simultaneously in Tribeca. Per square foot, prices in the building range from $550 to more than $1,100. For the $550 per square foot, a buyer gets high-end finishes, a kitchen and bathroom; for the $1,100, the buyer gets gas spigots and plumbing set-ups in three locations "so that tenants have flexibility on where to locate kitchens and bathrooms."

Broker Helene Luchnick said the developers decided to do more work on the lower floors–where the apartments are smaller and get significantly less light. "Basically, the windows on the north side of the building do not start until the fourth floor," she said. "So we made the decision that on two, three and four it would be harder [to sell them] if they weren't built out."

Ms. Luchnick said she thinks it will cost owners in the Atalanta about $200 a square foot to build out the space–half again the price per square foot in the lower-end units. That could put them out of reach for a segment of the market that would otherwise snatch them up at the competitive price per square foot. So far, only 23 of the 41 units are sold, though Ms. Luchnick remains sanguine about her success rate in the building. With the number of contracts signed, she said, the building will be completely sold by the summertime–a year after it went on the market.

But to some brokers considering whether raw lofts are a raw deal, that's too slow. "That's not good," said one broker. Said another, an executive at a brokerage that has handled comparable properties: "I would say that's probably longer than one expected, especially probably the developer. But that's the risk you take with a 'white box': most people want to walk in and see finishings that are going to be super-luxury."

The fact that finishes on apartments have improved drastically since the 1980's, when developers sought to cut corners on things like floors, kitchens and bathrooms, has impressed some but not others. At 285 Lafayette Street, a development by downtown real estate honcho Eric Hadar, the plans allowed for some of the highest-class finishes in recent memory, according to Ms. Luchnick, who marketed the building. But Mr. Hadar was reportedly surprised to find that the more famous the buyer–whether David Bowie and Iman, Lachlan Murdoch or Eric Nederlander–the more reluctant they were when they heard about his plans for the interiors. They wanted the space to come raw–and so it did.

And that's an amenity, it seems, that only the super-rich will buy.

UPPER WEST SIDE

A ROCKEFELLER MOVES TO THE WEST SIDE (GASP!) The 36-year-old son of the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller is going to live in a seven-room condo at 279 Central Park West.

In January, Mr. Rockefeller paid $2.3 million for a 2,200-square-foot condo in the building, near West 88th Street. The ninth-floor apartment has three bedrooms and four bathrooms. Brokers said the apartment had been on the market for four years and shuffled between numerous realty firms. Part of the problem was that a tenant was renting it for $9,000 a month, making it hard to show to potential buyers. The other problem, to some, is that it is not on the Upper East Side. "I can't believe a Rockefeller is living in a condo all the way up there," said one East Side broker. Completed in 1990, the building features 38 apartments on 23 floors and is noteworthy for its curved-glass corner windows and asymmetrical architecture.

Besides being heir to an oil fortune, Mr. Rockefeller is a trustee of the State University of New York and the chairman of Hacienda Campo Alegre Management Inc., a cattle and non-native wildlife business. He graduated from Deerfield Academy, Dartmouth College and Columbia Business School. A spokesman at his office at–where else?–Rockefeller Plaza said that Mr. Rockefeller wouldn't comment on the deal.

UPPER EAST SIDE

AT PETER GUBER'S OLD ADDRESS, 14 ROOMS GO FOR $12.6 MILLION Barbara Walters has a new neighbor at 944 Fifth Avenue. In mid-February, a contract was signed to sell the building's fourth floor for close to its asking price of $12.6 million. The deal was made by the estate of Rubelle Schafler, the widow of Norman Schafler, former chairman of Condec Corporation, a robot manufacturer. The deal was brokered by Cindy Kurtin of Stribling & Associates.

Mrs. Schafler, who died on Dec. 24, was a lifelong philanthropist who funded a gallery at the Pratt Institute and was also a supporter of Jewish organizations and programs for people with disabilities. Julie Schafler Dale, her daughter, owns a clothing store called Julie: Artisans Gallery on Madison Avenue and is married to actor Jim Dale, who won the 1980 Tony Award for his portrayal of Phineas T. Barnum in the Broadway musical Barnum . Ms. Schafler Dale didn't return calls.

Brokers said the 14-room, 5,200-square-foot apartment went on the market on Jan. 16 and features four bedrooms and six bathrooms. (Maintenance is $6,850.) "All the major rooms are facing west," said a broker, who called the apartment "dark." "You walk into each bedroom and you see a brick wall."

Another broker who had shown the apartment called the experience of being in the space "like walking back in time." Said the broker: "It was a mint renovation. It had the most beautiful hardware."

The 1925 building has 14 stories, a detailed limestone façade and 15 apartments. It was designed by Nathan Korn in an Italian Renaissance palazzo style. Peter Guber and Robert Steinberg are also former residents.

169 East 69th Street

Two-bed, two-and-a-half-bath, 1,450-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $825,000. Selling: $800,000.

Charges: $1,542; 48 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: three weeks.

WHEN RENOVATING BECOMES A REFLEX This 1,450-square-foot apartment on a high floor of a postwar, full-service building is a duplex. The two-bedroom apartment has a living room, a separate dining room and a powder room on the first floor. Upstairs, where the ceilings are higher, there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The buyers, a couple with a child, had been looking for a place in the neighborhood, where they had been living for several years. What they did not want was "just a cookie-cutter apartment," said Daniela Kunen of Douglas Elliman, the exclusive broker on this sale. "It really feels like a house." The sellers were relocating out of town for business. The buyers will update the kitchen, a renovation which Ms. Kunen said is not necessary. "Most people would have considered [the apartment] in move-in condition," she said, "but the buyers wanted to make their own statement."

137 East 66th Street

Two-bed, one-bath, 1,200-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $550,000. Selling: $475,000.

Charges: $1,683; 46 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: one day.

NEIGHBORS SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE A designer-architect signed a contract last fall to buy this two-bedroom apartment in need of a complete renovation for $420,000. But after trying repeatedly to come up with a way to renovate the place to his liking, he got fed up. The apartment was too small for his big plans, and so he put it back on the market the following week, this time with an ambitious price tag–over $100,000 more than he had paid. A family in the building wanted it for one of their relatives, and they gave the seller about half the profit he was looking for. But it's not like the new owners didn't know they were overpaying–they were the back-up bidders last fall. According to the designer's broker, Richard Steinberg of Ashforth Warburg Associates, the family will have to put in a new kitchen and bath, redo the floors and put in new windows.

GREENWICH VILLAGE

42 West 13th Street

One-bed, one-bath, 600-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $315,000. Selling: $303,000.

Charges: $482; 46 percent tax deductible.

Time on market: three weeks.

WHY THE VILLAGE IS COOKING This prewar co-op building that once served as a bakery is on the same leafy block as the New School and the Quad Cinema, which must be why it's attractive to young buyers. Broker Mary Anne Cotter, with the Corcoran Group, said that her firm has brokered apartments in this building before and that they're popular starters for young people, given the location, the low maintenance, the reasonable prices and the loft-like, bohemian feel of living in an old bakery. Another one-bedroom apartment sold recently for about $300,000. Both have 11-foot-high ceilings, hardwood floors and new kitchens.

As recently as July, Charles Bronfman sold 8.1 million shares of his personal Seagram stock as part of a $2.5 billion equity offering to help the business reduce its debt–which he reportedly attributes to his nephew's entertainment industry acquisitions, Polygram Records and Universal Studios. Three months later, according to brokers, the 68-year-old business executive, whose family's beverage and entertainment company is based in Montreal, signed a deal for a 5,343-square-foot apartment that occupies the entire 11th and 12th floors at 838 Fifth. Sources said the deal was done directly between Mr. Bronfman and the developers.

Seagram publicists had no comment at press time.

The sale is pending the July 2000 completion of the building, the former offices of a Reformed Jewish organization, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which was purchased by Republic Bank founder Edmond Safra in 1997 for $31 million. It is being developed into 11 condos priced from $9 million to $18 million by Alfred Taubman, the chairman of Sotheby's and a resident of 834 Fifth Avenue, right next door. The building, which is being redesigned by Beyer Blinder Belle, also offers storage rooms, wine cellars and servants' quarters on the lower floors for between $30,000 and $566,000. According to brokers, two other apartments are in contract: the eight-floor unit, which is selling for almost $16 million, and the sixth-floor unit, which is selling for $12 million through Stribling & Associates.

Charles Bronfman and his wife, Andrea, will be moving into very close proximity to the rest of the New York-based Bronfman clan–who all live within 15 blocks of each other along Fifth Avenue. Seagram co-chairman Edgar Bronfman (president of the World Jewish Congress) and his wife, Jan Aronson, live at 960 Fifth Avenue near 77th Street. Their son Edgar, Seagram's chief executive, recently completed a three-year renovation of his five-story town house on 64th Street between Fifth and Madison avenues, for which he paid $4.375 million in 1994, the year he married Clarissa Alcock. (Prior to that, Mr. Bronfman lived in another town house nine blocks uptown at 122 East 73rd Street, for which he paid $2.8 million in 1990 and offloaded last July for $4.5 million.) Matthew Bronfman, another of Edgar's sons and president of Perfumes Isabell, paid $3 million for a town house at 7 East 67th Street in 1994, where he lives with his wife, public education activist Lisa Belzberg.

Charles and Andrea Bronfman will likely work with their own architect and devise a layout for their condominium, as buyers of new construction are being encouraged to do these days. But the developer's proposed design for the Bronfmans' new home contains three bedrooms, two fireplaces and multiple terraces.

Hopefully, Mr. Bronfman won't meet with the same renovation headaches that other members of his family have. According to published reports, Matthew Bronfman spent $17 million on renovations. Then, the landlord of the rental building next door, an attorney named Stuart Shaw, sued him for alleged damages to his building during his neighbor's renovation: walls and floors shifting, the loosening of an elevator shaft, and an unhealthy amounts of dust in the air.

UPPER WEST SIDE

239 Central Park West

Two-bed, two-bath, 2,000-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $1.2 million. Selling: $1.15 million.

Charges: $1,798; 44 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: five months.

FIFTY-YEAR-OLD BROTHERS GO MARTHA STEWART ON THEIR MOTHER'S HOUSE. Two brothers, now in their 50's, were born and raised in this apartment, which doesn't have views of the park but once had views of the river (now obstructed by high-rise condos). After their mother died last year, the brothers decided to liquidate her estate–including her apartment, which had appreciated considerably. They made extensive renovations to it, such as new cabinetry in the kitchen, marble floors and granite counters. They also reopened the wood-burning fireplace, which their mother had closed up years ago. The result: a ferocious bidding war for this apartment, and several offers. Of course, the building's tough co-op board turned them down, one after another, until two couples tugged rope, both equally qualified, but one (ha!) better connected socially. Broker: Halstead Property Company (Andrew Phillips); Douglas Elliman (Louise Phillips, no relation).

GRAMERCY

60 Gramercy Park North

Two-bed, 1.5-bath, 1,050-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $549,000. Selling: $550,000

Charges: $1,113; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two weeks.

COUPLE CLINGS TO EMERY ROTH APARTMENT. In no time at all, this charming apartment was sold to an eager couple, two attorneys. They didn't want to enter into a bidding war, so they offered more than the asking price. The couple glided through the board interview. Done deal? Not so fast. They abruptly sent notice to the board that they were filing for divorce and were unsure who would take the apartment. After going through all the trouble of searching for a new home, it's certainly possible that one or both of them became suddenly horrified at the thought of spending the rest of their lives together. It's also possible that they just changed their mind about the apartment, wanted their deposit back (10 percent of the asking price) and set themselves up to be turned down by the board. In any case, that left the sellers in a tough position, since they had already gone to contract on their new Upper East Side apartment. Luckily, a couple living upstairs wanted a bigger apartment in this Emery Roth-designed building and stepped in quickly. Now they've got their two bedrooms, which come with nine-foot-high ceilings; a powder room off the foyer; prewar details, such as painter's moldings, hardwood parquet floors, and original tiles in the bathroom; top-of-the-line kitchen appliances, including a dishwasher and microwave; and, as is offered to every apartment in the building, a much coveted key to Gramercy Park. Broker: Halstead (Andrew Phillips and Lisa Fountain); J.&C. Lamb (Jeff Lamb).

SOHO

101 Wooster Street

Two-bed, one-bath, 1,620-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $689,000. Selling: $675,000.

Charges: $882; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

AROUND THE WORLD ON $675,000. The divorced woman who sold this loft was its first and only occupant. An artist in her 60's, she had lived here for 15 years before deciding to sell it and free herself to travel. The fifth-floor apartment has 10-foot-high ceilings, lots of light, a washer and dryer, columns along the walls, exposed brick and a fixed-up kitchen with new appliances and ceramic tiles. The building has a sun deck on the roof, storage space and an elevator. This summer, along came a single mother who teaches private dance lessons and is looking eventually to start a theater company. She had owned a town house in the Village and, after her divorce, decided to head farther south. Although she had been shown other apartments, the size and location of this one made her pirouette right over to her checkbook. The deal closed in mid-September. Broker: Corcoran Group (Perrie Gurfein, Linda Partland, Meredith Hatfield).

TRIBECA

55 White Street

One-bed, 2.5-bath, 2,400-square-foot condo.

Asking: $995,000. Selling: $995,000.

Charges: $725; taxes: $498.

Time on the market: six months.

WHO GIVES UP 2,400 SQUARE FEET IN TRIBECA? A couple left this apartment–and the city–but not before collecting what they had coming to them as owners of a ground-floor triplex with 15-foot-high ceilings, hardwood floors, Corinthian columns, a wood-burning fireplace, a marble bath and a modern kitchen. The apartment faces south into a courtyard. Money can buy happiness. Broker: Corcoran (Dorothy Zeidman, Joanne Benedict).

DITMAS PARK

447 East 17th Street

Six-bed, 2.5-bath, 3,000-square-foot house.

Asking: $575,000. Selling: $537,500.

Time on the market: three weeks.

DRIVEWAY–A NOUN MEANING FREE PARKING SPACE. This Victorian home is located on a landmark block in one of the nation's oldest suburbs; it's on the south side of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, less than 40 minutes from Manhattan. The sellers, both in the restaurant management business, had lived here for five years with their two children before being transferred to Seattle. Their forest green house is in great condition and boasts a large front porch with columns; formal dining room (three words rarely uttered in Manhattan); basement and attic; stained glass in a bathroom and in one of the bedrooms; hardwood floors; yard and driveway (you can find those unfamiliar words in the dictionary). The buyers, a Citibank employee and his wife, have two children and just moved to town from Pittsburgh. Broker: Corcoran's Brooklyn Landmark (William Stephen).