For $23 million, you'll no longer have to gaze longingly at the limestone loggia perched atop 10 Gracie Square.

Not often do penthouses at Manhattan’s “Good Buildings” (as per Tom Wolfe, according to whom there are only 42) come on the market, but today is one of those rare days: the south penthouse at 10 Gracie Square was just listed for $23 million.

The white-glove building sits in the rarefied hinterlands of the far East Side, overlooking Carl Schurz Park, and once had a yacht mooring onto the East River, sadly disfigured by the FDR (which is decked over beneath the ritziest buildings—a coincidence, we’re sure). Moreover, the penthouse occupant gets an up-close view of the building’s rooftop fixture, which is rumored to be, along with that on top of 1040 Fifth Avenue, the inspiration for 15 Central Park West’s crown.

The penthouse's current owner is financier Yves de Balmann, who is represented by Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger.

The ten-room duplex co-op sits right next to Gloria Vanderbilt's old digs (her second choice, after she was rebuffed by the board at River House next door—she says because she was dating a black man, the board says because she would draw unwanted attention), where she raised Anderson Cooper in between acid trips ("After a while," wrote The Telegraph, "the therapist removed her blindfold. To her surprise, everything in the penthouse room at 10 Gracie Square looked entirely normal").

But it was also the site of a more tragic event, when her oldest son, Carter, committed suicide by jumping from the terrace, with Ms. Vanderbilt recalling twenty years later, "He let go, and there was a moment when I thought I was going to jump over after him."

Other bold-faced names to reside at 10 Gracie Square include Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, wife to the Kuomintang leader who was pushed out of mainland China by Communist forces and ended his life as a Taiwanese dictator, as well as Eric Rudin of the eponymous dynastic development firm, who picked up a $12 million triplex in the building in 2011.

Nemazee certainly spared no expense when it came to his 15-room terraced duplex apartment on the 14th and 15th floors of 770 Park Avenue. Twenty-eight windows span three exposures, and the co-op has a 29-foot living room overlooking Park Avenue and a 20-foot living room adjacent (both with wood burning fireplaces and herringbone wood floors, of course). When the U.S. Marshals listed it for $28 million last March, it was the highest-priced forfeited asset that they'd ever put up for sale.

So why doesn't anyone want it? The apartment, which was listed with Sotheby's broker Anne V. Corey until this August, took a series of price cuts before the Feds clearly became, well, fed up with how things were going. The spectacular spread (five bedrooms, all with en-suite baths, plus two staff rooms and a staff bathroom) has just been re-listed for $19.5 million with Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger.

Certainly, a scandal can bring an apartment's price down, but come on! The duplex was associated with financial fraud, not some bloodbath. Moreover, Nemazee funneled his ill-gotten gains into primarily two areas—his lifestyle and political contributions—and this was the best house that gobs of money from a very successful scam could buy. It's way better than Bernie Madoff's place, which sold for $8 million (and Madoff's place had an address on East 64th Street).

Most likely though, the U.S. Marshals were so stoked about snatching the biggest asset of all time that they asked for more than they could get—a $20 million sale of another high-floor duplex in 2007 is the building's highwater mark—and the listing languished. After all, the two Tribeca lofts that Nemazee had purchased for his children sold swiftly following his conviction, for $2.4 million and $3.1 million.

But $19.5 million certainly seems do-able. When Nemazee's wife Sheila was trying to delay her eviction for the Park Avenue pad in 2010, her lawyer told the judge that there was a $20 million offer on the table. Certainly the place could fetch that much or more now? In fact, we might even go so far as to say that $19.5 million is a steal.

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

Ms. Gustavson and husband Christopher Sales, who is also involved with the financial industry at Credit Suisse, must be doing well in their careers, as they've upgraded from a two-bedroom rental at 375 West End Avenue to a sprawling three-bedroom spread that they just bought at the Beresford for $5.2 million, according to city records.

The couple bought the 16th-floor spread at 211 Central Park West, which has all the grand proportions befitting a pair with burgeoning  financial prominence: a private foyer, a 27-foot gallery, a 28-foot living room and a 24-foot dining room.

The seller, Wendy Barasch, who is a portfolio manager at Evercore Wealth Management, also did well with her investment—she bought the unit for $2.9 million in 2004. Not as well as she might have liked given that the place originally went on the market for $5.7 million in November and was most recently listed for $5.4 million with Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger (it took a brief hiatus from the market during the holidays).

Apparently, the couple decided that now was the time to finally buy. And for Ms. Barasch, she must have had an inkling that now was the time to sell luxury real estate in Manhattan.

kvelsey@observer.com

For a while, it seemed that all hope was lost, what with the disappearance of the Courtney Sale Ross mammoth at 740 Park, the Teddy Forstmann whopper at 2 East 70th Street and the $77.5 million Ritz-Carlton throne. But praise be, there's a new $50 million co-op apartment on the market.

The owners of a floor-through apartment at the hoity-toity 944 Fifth Avenue (the staff members actually wear white gloves, reports The New York Times, who first wrote about the listing), have listed their six-bedroom apartment. The apartment is located on a high floor above the tree line. The listing doesn't actually mention which high floor—how discreet!—but a little sleuthing reveals that the apartment is almost certainly on the eleventh floor.

The owner, Brown Harris Stevens broker  John Burger whispers to The Times, is a "private investor" who bought the place 14 years ago, but has only lived there for 12 because of a very extensive renovation by Thad Hayes that took two full years.

The place had beautiful bones, of course (70 feet fronting Central Park, "glorious light streaming in through 30 windows," and 4 exposures), but it needed some work to take it to the next level. Elite residences always do.

Now the home has "the finest finishes and luxurious appointments." Private elevator landing opening onto "a vast gallery with two coat closets and a powder room?" Check. A 27-foot living room and 23-foot dining room? Check. A master suite with fireplace, dressing room and granite master bath? Check.

Not that whoever might want to plunk down $50 million wouldn't want to do their own extensive renovation to make the 5,000-square-foot place even more exquisite. After all, once you move into the same building as Barbara Walters, you really have to up your game.

The apartment also comes with a separate two-bedroom guest apartment on the ground floor "with a private entrance on Fifth Avenue," for friends and relatives that you want to keep close, but not too close. A nice perk, but its very practicality (it even has a washer and dryer!) almost detracts from the near-blinding shine of this trophy.

kvelsey@observer.com

John Burger

After hearing that real estate brokers have been suffering in the recession, we decided to call John Burger, recently named America's top broker, to see his take on the recession's lingering effects on the industry.

"I think that what were seeing is that 20 percent of the brokers are doing 80 percent of the business. The sellers and the buyers want to align themselves with the brokers that have the track record," he told The Observer. And while Mr. Burger himself happens to be in the favored 20 percent, his comments seemed informed rather than self-serving. When times are rough, sellers and buyers want to ensure they're getting the biggest bang for their buck, and are reaching out to the city's gilded agents to help them, Mr. Burger explained.

Accessibility of information has also played a significant factor in the industry's steep divisions. "I think that the Internet is driving the volume of business that goes to the overachieving  brokers. Ten years ago there was no information on the web, now its all there. It's almost like the buying public is able to rate their broker and choose their broker in the same way they choose their mutual fund," he explained. So many brokers are feeling the heat in the cool economic climate, but it's been boom times for the top few.

And all those foreign buyers? By his estimation, foreign buyers are comprising about 20 to 25% of condo buyers, but only about 5% of coop buyers. It's mostly the new building's they're after anyway, particularly well placed Midtown developments like Extell's One57. "It’s a great pied a terre location for the international buyer. It puts you in the heart of everything," he said.

In terms of the luxury market, he explained why some properties have been flying off the market while others have been slow to sell. "People are responding to instant satisfaction as opposed to delayed satisfaction," he said.  "When things are in move-in condition or in mint-condition, I think people will reach for them and will pay a premium for them. I think when somebody  is confronted, a great apartment, with work restrictions and renovations and board approvals, they know it’s a year year and a half of their life."

Here's what we gleaned from our fireside (OK, office phone) chat with good sir Burger.

1. A lot of brokers are in fact broke.
2. The Internet is a powerful tool
3. Foreigners like shiny things
4. It's no longer en vogue to buy a project apartment.

eknutsen@observer.com

Burger King!

Who's the best broker in the land? Brown Harris Stevens' John Burger, according to the Wall Street Journal's annual list of the nation's top real estate agents. The New York based broker is a heavy hitter in the industry, selling $279,841,487 in New York property last year. Figuring that 3% commission, Mr. Burger did well for himself last year, pocketing approximately $8,395,244 before Uncle Sam.

According to his personal website, Mr. Burger splits his time between his homes on the Upper East Side and in Watermill (naturally), and is fluent in Spanish and German. And English, we presume.

Mr. Burger is currently working on several high profile property sales in New York, including a $33,000,000 5-bedroom at 927 Fifth Avenue and a $30,000,000 home at 720 Park Avenue.

Mr. Burger wasn't the only New York broker at the top of the national list—we are the kings when it comes to real estate, after all. While No. 2 was an agent from Menlo Park, CA (where all those Silicon Valley richies live), No. 3 on the list was our very own Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman, who sold $223,092,274, taking $6.69 million home for herself. The next New York City seller on the list is Lisa Lippman, also of Brown Harris  Stevens who sold $189,697,213 last year, raking in $5.69 million in commission. She was ranked No. 6.

Next, following  a bevy of California- and Colorado-based brokers, Roger Erickson of Sotheby's International Realty earned the nation's 12th spot, selling $145,635,000 last year, making $4.36 million off the sales. Finally, Serena Boardman, also of Sotheby's came in at No. 16 with $133,572,500 in sales and $4 million personal profit.

Here are the details for the next 5 most successful NYC brokers this year:

6) Cathy Franklin, Brown Harris Stevens: $106,299,336 sales, $3.18 million in profits.

7) Lauren Muss, Corcoran: $99,088,250 sales, $2.97 million in profits

8 ) Paul Wexler, Corcoran: $88,055,000 sales, $2.64 million in profits.

9) Marlene Marcus, Brown Harris Stevens: $82,153,500 sales, $2.46 million in profits.

10) Sherry Matays, Corcoran: $70,654,167 sales, $2.11 million in profits

Money slept here. (Haus Fitzgerald)

Could William Lie Zeckendorf be the shrewdest man in New York City real estate?

The only thing more surprising than the news just over a month ago that Mr. Zeckendorf was selling the top half of the late Bruce Wasserstein's old duplex at 927 Fifth Avenue—which he fought off a number of other buyers for in a madcap one-day auction—is that he found a buyer less than a week after putting it on the market. Not only that, but according to a number of sources, the five-bedroom spread went for "well over" its $31.5 million asking price after some zealous bidding. One broker said the price could even be in excess of $34 million.

This could help explain Mr. Zeckendorf's unexpected decision to sell.

As The Times noted 32 days ago, "brokers said the reasons for his selling again were unknown at this point." Well, now we may know, as Mr. Zeckendorf could be turning a $5 million profit on the five-bedroom home overlooking Central Park, which he closed on in December for $29.1 million. He never moved in.

That may not be nearly profitable as one of his other jaw-dropping deals, the record-breaking sale of the penthouse atop 15 Central Park West, which went for $40 million, or nearly $10,000 a square foot, or four times what Mr. Zeckendorf originally paid to crown the building he and his brother built with Robert A.M. Stern. Then again, he turned around 927 Fifth in all of six months, instead of two years. Never mind that Mr. Zecekendorf does not need the money, 15 Central Park West having been a success in and of itself after it grossed a staggering $2 billion, an amount matched only in magnitude by the outsized resales in the building.

If the sale is true, and the contract goes through, it belies the fact that, like Bid 'Em Up Bruce, as Wasserstein was known, Mr. Zeckendorf is simply a consummate dealmaker who cannot say no to a good offer. "Will clearly knows what he's doing," one broker said. "He's going to be a lucky son of a bitch, whatever he does."

The identity of the buyer remains unknown, and there is still the possibility the co-op board might not approve. For the kind of money on offer, it might be hard to say no, though. A rising tide and all that. Plus, this is one of the more lenient boards in a stringent city. "Financially, it is tight, but socially, it's easy," one broker said.

John Burger, Mr. Zeckendorf's broker, as well as his firm Brown Harris Stevens, which manages the building, declined to comment. Mr. Zeckendorf did not immediately return requests for comment.

If such numbers seem staggering—Wasserstein paid $15 million for both floors only a decade ago—brokers said it is an especially nice apartment in nearly perfect condition with not only views of the Park but also lots of light from the 74th Street side.

Completed in 1917 by Grand Central Terminal architects Warren & Whetmore, it is not the most distinguished of the Upper East Side co-ops. Nonetheless, it has attracted its fair share of notable owners, among them Mary Tyler Moore, Kenneth Cole, Richard Cohen and Paula Zahn and, perhaps most famously, the hawk Pale Male, whose perch was dislodged to widespread protest in 2004, until it was replaced three weeks later.

So quick turnarounds are nothing new in this building.

Dr. Senay is a public health specialist who works and teaches at Mt. Sinai while also serving as a CBS medical correspondent since 1994. Among her recent segments was an Early Show piece on the importance of wearing sunglasses. Mr. Seavy is a developer who specializes in affordable housing, doing a good deal of his building in the Bronx.

The couple sold their old home on the eighth floor in just over three months, netting $5.7 million on the sale, $200,000 more than they were asking. The buyers, banker Andrew Senchak and freelance writer Barbara Case Senchak of Short Hills, N.J., are the proud owners of "this seven (originally eight) room apartment is fully renovated and is in mint, move-in condition," as Cathy Taub and Rosette Arons put it in their Stribling listing. "Both the living room and formal dining room are of a grand scale, conducive to entertaining, and have restored original walnut floors and prewar details."

The doctor and the developer are moving into John and Anne Lindow's old home, and have paid $7.55 million for the privilege, down from a first ask of $8.3 million from June. "With over 50-feet fronting the Park, this sprawling home offers more square footage than any other line in the building and is in move-in condition," brags Brown Harris Steven's John Burger in his listing. "With 19 windows spanning 4 exposures, the home is bathed in incredible light and offers beautifully preserved architectural detailing and pristine herringbone flooring throughout."

With a little bit of luck and a lot of money, the couple will trade up into one of the Time Warner Center towers one of these days.

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

It took two years for the idealistic price to approach reality. The 13-room ground floor unit of the Candela-designed building, where the late Brooke Astor's apartment upstairs also lingers on the market (price sliced, incidentally, from $46 million to $24.9 million), was relisted after a recession-weary market hiatus, by Brown Harris Stevens mavens Paula del Nunzio and John Burger for $12 million, a discount of over 50%. Now, the Brown Harris Stevens' listing reveals yet another price cut to a bargain $10 million. Clearly the cost had become prohibitive for potential buyers!

The 5,000 square foot home which boasts its own address, 73 East 73rd Street, is famous for its red library, Mr. Buckley's office left as is, an 18 foot long marble foyer and the legions of political, intellectual and cultural elites who dined and wined with high-society conservatism's host Mr. Buckley and wife, Pat.

Something about 778 Park Avenue and provenance seems to equal price cuts, or perhaps it's simply a case of over-zealous preliminary pricing. The building's ground floor maisonette, which also boasts its own private, and symmetrical, address--73 East 73rd Street--entertained legions of New York City's elite as the headquarters for high-society conservatism with the home's hosts. As Ms. Del Nunzio told The New York Times in March, “This is the place where all those conversations and dinners with statesmen and political figures, not to mention film and television stars, with a quiet family dinner thrown in here and there, happened. This is a rare opportunity to acquire a piece of New York’s intellectual history.”

-cmalle@observer.com