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 11/08/12 10:03am

Manhattan Transfers

5 Photos

The House That Urban Outfitters Built

The House That Urban Outfitters Built: Former Hipster Fashion Honcho Sells UES Co-op

Glen T. Senk’s elegant, eight-room co-op at 1060 Fifth Avenue does not much resemble the dingy college dorms of so many Urban Outfitters catalogs, with their shoddy decorations and strung-out looking models lounging in exasperated indolence. But it could easily pass for one of the heart-stoppingly beautiful homes that provide the backdrops to so many Anthropologie catalogs. Which is, perhaps, why Mr. Senk, who resigned as Urban Outfitters CEO this January, decided to sell the place.

Indeed, Mr. Senk listed the three-bedroom, four-bath home for $5.9 million just days before his resignation became public. He’s since become the CEO of upscale jeweler David Yurman. After spending 18 years helping to determine the sartorial desires of so many would-be hipsters in high school and college, he apparently thought it was time for something more age-appropriate. We’ve had that moment with more than a few sheer tops and cheap baubles from the retailer. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 12/15/11 3:30pm

Manhattan Transfers

142 East End Avenue (StreetEasy)

Star Pathologist and O.J. Defense Witness Sells in Yorkville

Way back in 1995, a forensic pathologist took the stand of the O.J. Simpson trial. An expert witness for the defense, Michael Baden suggested that there had been two killers that fateful night, and O.J was ultimately let off. Mr. Baden has unloaded some serious baggage recently, but it isn’t an explanation for his dubious theory. No, in this case it comes in the form of a four-bedroom, four-bath townhouse in Yorkville.

Dr. Baden, who  briefly served as New York’s Chief Medical Examiner in the late 1970s, just sold a townhouse at 142 East End Avenue, according to city records. While he got O.J. off scot-free, the good doctor took a hit on the sale. Originally listed last May for $4.1 million, the blood-red brick townhouse just fetched $3.55 million. Read More

By Max Abelson 7:53pm

Shelving Trophies

On Monday, the rare-maps dealer W. Graham Arader III was in the passenger seat of his black Mercedes SUV, thinking about all the wealthy people who have not bought his 12,000-square-foot, 22-room, 10-bedroom townhouse at 1016 Madison Avenue. “People have been clubbed to death by recent events,” he said. “The seals in Alaska had it Read More

By Max Abelson 3/24/09 11:03pm

Yes She Candler? A Tale of Recession Brokering

Earlier last year, Manhattan real estate broker Leighton Candler broke New York City’s co-op record when she sold the duplex penthouse at 1060 Fifth Avenue for $46 million. And she broke it again six months later when it flipped for $48,836,000. And she had three big listings poised to bring her yet more notoriety: Penthouses Read More

By Max Abelson 11/25/08 10:14pm

New York’s New Co-op Queen

“You can’t make somebody buy something. You just can’t make them. They’re not handing out shotguns to brokers yet,” the tall, blond, Georgia-bred, 47-year-old real estate broker Leighton Candler complained earlier this month. She was sitting in the wood-paneled library of a 14-room duplex penthouse at 1020 Fifth Avenue. “And to push is wrong, to Read More