Sofia Coppola's condo: No longer a starring in the director's life

It is not Versailles, certainly, but Sofia Coppola's two-bedroom condo at 161 Grand Street is lovely. Just not lovely enough to keep the Marie Antoinette director interested.

Ms. Coppola has sold her "sun-drenched" corner loft for the $2.75 million ask, according to city records. Margaret Challa is the buyer of this roomy, high-ceilinged space.

The condo offers big windows that look out at the Manhattan skyline from the sixth floor—perfect for gazing out at the city in moody reverie.

There's also a state-of-the-art kitchen, custom closets and a luxurious master bath with lots of marble and a soaking tub, according to the listing held by Corcoran brokers Carter Wilcox and Chris Poore.

It goes without saying that the luxurious loft sold quickly (only 37 days on the market). It does, after all, have the kind of muted beauty that Ms. Coppola is known for cultivating.

kvelsey@observer.com

Bob Vila

While home improvement master Bob Vila may be known for giving drab homes D.I.Y. facelifts, around these parts he is better known as a successful flipper of top-of-the-line Manhattan real estate. There was the Tribeca loft—where he was neighbors with Mariah Carey—the Upper East Side townhouse, the two apartments at Museum Tower. Even Mr. Vila's son Chris has gotten in on the game.

That is why it is so surprising the salt-and-pepper-of-the-earth handyman has had a hard time selling a penthouse at 15 East 26th Street that he bought two years ago.

Mr. Vila purchased the Flatiron condo overlooking Madison Square Park back in early 2009, paying just over $6 million for the two-bedroom, three-bath penthouse. With a 600-square-foot private terrace and a ridiculously proportioned master suite, the home would impress even the uptown set. The condo also features a home office where Mr. Vila undoubtedly sat in deep contemplation, pondering the best gutter-cleaning practices and kitchen tiling tactics.

Unlike many of Mr. Vila's previous purchases, it appears he had no intention to renovate this property, as The Times noted when he bought the place that the penthouse was move-in ready.

The building, also known as 15 Madison Square North, is described by its developer as transporting residents back to "the warmth and grandeur of a time when the city’s elite traveled by carriage." Perhaps the place did not jibe with Mr. Vila's pick-up truck proclivities. The 20-story condo was a former commercial building erected in 1912 that still, quite appropriately, houses many home supply showrooms on its lower floors. On the top 11 stories there are now 72 condo units.

Strangely, it seems that Mr. Vila knew he was destined to lose money on the deal. When he put it on the market last May, the asking price was $5.7 million,  a full $300,000 less than what he paid for it—unusual circumstances considering so many homes bought during the doldrums of the housing bust are now being passed off for considerably more.

After several price chops, an anonymous buyer ended up paying just $5 million for the place, according to city records. Hopefully this has not soured Mr. Vila on New York for good. As busy as he is with these renovations, there is plenty of sweat on The Observer's brow trying to keep up.

eknutsen@observer.com

The penthouse does have a bunch of large windows that bring in that natural light and a spacious, private rooftop terrace that looks more warm and welcoming than the inside. Another perk of the space is the keyed elevator that opens up directly to the apartment (which takes up the entire top floor of the building). It's 5,648 square feet and has the potential for four to six bedrooms, depending on the preference of whomever comes up with the layout for this create-your-own-apartment.

It's Zagreat! (PMcM)

Six years ago, 249 Church Street would have rated a 22 or 23 in Edward Ernst "Ted" Zagat's book. The restaurant survey scion purchased a three-bedroom loft there, perhaps for the proximity to Bouley, The Odeon and Nobu, for $1.6 million. Having joined Facebook in April, he just sold the home for a very friendly $2.15 million.

While Mr. Zagat came to Tribeca from his native Upper West Side, the buyer is even more of a foreigner. Aidan P. Flatley is president and C.E.O. of the Ontario-based Kenaidan company. (Get it?Founded with a guy named Ken, sounds like Canadian—these guys are clever.) Mr. Flatley's daughter Margaret is also listed on the deed and currently resides in the Village. According to a source, the 1,700-square-foot home is for her.

The fifth-floor loft feels like the perfect launching ground for a web start-up, with its 12.5-foot ceiling. With 11 huge windows on three sides, the apartment is flooded with light. "249 Church St or also know as 65 Leonard St, was built in 1915 and has a sandstone exterior highly decorated in Italianate and second empire style ornament architecture," write Corcoran brokers Darren Kearns and Davina Rosenbaum in their listing.

"It's a great property since there really aren't that many condos in this size in a building this small," Mr. Kearns told The Observer. He said this is why the apartment was bid up over the $1.95 million ask, going to contract in 31 days and closing two weeks after that. "It hit a nice target," he said.

So will Mr. Zagat be following the geek exodus to Chelsea or Brooklyn? Mr. Kearns said the plan is in all likelihood to relocate nearer to the Facebook mothership in the Bay Area.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Get out of my neighborhood! (Getty)

Back in the 1970s, Tribeca's Belgian-block streets were chock-a-block with artists, and that's about it. Nowadays, the only artists in the city's most expensive neighborhood are those financial wizards who have made an art out of making money. There is, though, the occasional auteur, like Danny Masterson, the actor/DJ/child model/Scientologist.

Four years into his run as Hyde on That '70s Show, Mr. Masterson purchased a penthouse at 19 Warren Street, paying $1.43 million in November 2002. He has now sold his lofty triplex for $3.19 million, according to city records.

The 25-foot-wide limestone warehouse is a block from City Hall. The condo features a winding staircase that connects a large kitchen and dining room to a skylit living room above and a crow's nest of a guest bedroom that comprises the entire top floor.

"Exposed brick walls, 18’ glass solarium great room, media room with built-in speaker surround sound, skylights, and two unbelievable terraces with south and north exposures," declares Darren Kearns in his Corcoran listing.

The buyers are David and Laura Busker.

Along with all his other interests—poker, restaurants, Bijou Phillips—Mr. Masterson has a thing for trading real estate. In 2007, he sold a fancy house in L.A., the same year he started a condo project there that later ran afoul of the law.

Our real question is whether he will be updating his Twitter account, which currently lists his location as "tribeca.E hollywood.park city."

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

So beautiful, so propertied.

1991 was a good year for Susan Sarandon. Thelma and Louise came out, landing her on the cover of Time magazine with Gina Davis, and she and long-time partner Tim Robbins, who had finished shooting Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, had just purchased a Chelsea loft at 147 West 15th Street, near Seventh Avenue. As the couple moved up in the world, they moved up in the building, eventually owning the entire eighth floor and the northern half of the seventh.

2011 has been an O.K. year for Ms. Sarandon. She's still talking about her year-and-a-half-old split from Mr. Robbins, but at least she can do it from their huge loft.

(Property Shark)

According to city records, Ms. Sarandon paid Mr. Robbins $3.2 million for their duplex co-op. Two years ago, a full-floor spread on the second floor sold for $5 million in the doldrums of the recession, so this is a steal on par with Emma Thompson robbing Ms. Sarandon of the Best Actress Oscar in 1992.

Details on the home are scant, but if the second-floor unit is an "industrial strength 4765 square foot" home, as its listing claimed, that gives Ms. Sarandon a bachelorette pad pushing 7,000 square feet. Plenty of room for a ping pong table or two. Not that she would need to. Her beloved SPIN is just a few blocks away.

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

"It feels like where Tom Hanks would live in a Tom Hanks movie where he was a guy who lived in New York," Stribling broker Alexa Lambert, who is marketing the building, told The Observer. "You know in the movies where they show the apartment and it's like, 'Yeah, right, nobody has that.' It's like the idea of what living in New York looks like."

The building has suffered its share of setbacks in getting to this point. The first set of condos, 22 in total on the 11th through 14th floors, came on the market in 2002, when the city was still recovering from 9/11 and the tech crash. Then it was revealed that the massive duplex penthouse was a little too massive, exceeding plans on file with the Landmarks Preservation Commission (the building is located in the Tribeca North Historic District).

No worry. Developer Stanley Scott--who had worked in the building since 1966 and bought it three decades later--had the duplex dismantled and rebuilt by master glass designer James Carpenter, who did the facade at 7 World Trade Center among other project. The staircase alone cost $1 million to manufacture, but when it was all done, the 7,493-square-foot pad set a new downtown record at $30.5 million when it was purchased by ex-con William Duker.

In the meantime, all that reconstruction held up closing on the second round of condos, built out on the seventh through ninth floors--everything below is a commercial condo, stocked with architects and other creative types. Deposits were refunded and it was not until this spring that the units came back on the market. "I think I was pregnant when we started this property, and now my son's shaving," Ms. Lambert joked.

Still, thanks to a shortage of inventory in one of the city's most sought after neighborhood, the two-, three- and four-bedroom lofts were snapped up in short order. Ranging in price from $3.5 million to $7.3 million, they are on the high-end even for this tony corner of the city. Ms. Lambert credits the finishes, including oak floors and gigantic casement windows, all while the building has no fancy amenities to attract buyers.

"I think people are willing to pay up for something they love," Ms. Lambert said. "The market for mediocre properties isn't the best."

Granted there were only nine units to sell in that nine month period, and even Ms. Lambert acknowledges she did not break the coveted $2,000-per-square-foot threshold that now seems to be the barrier for the most luxurious buildings. Prices averaged just under $1,900 a foot. But with hundreds of prospective buyers, the sell out still speaks to a paucity of product. (Ms. Lambert declined to identify any of her buyers, but she said there were "no investors, no speculator and no foreigners," mostly just bankers and well-to-do professionals as well as some family money.)

"Given the amount of development in Tribeca over the past decade, it's amazing the lack of inventory right now," said Bruce Ehrman, a Stribling broker who specializes in the neighborhood but was not involved with the project. "People are just circling and circling and snapping up whatever they can, because there's not much out there, especially product of this quality."

Market guru Jonathan Miller was less charitable with the building's two-month sell out. "That is good," Mr. Miller said. "I'd look at that and say that looks like a reasonable absorbtion rate. And it's certainly better than in recent years, so their timing appeared to be good."

One of the units is rethinking its timing, though. Early last month, that penthouse came back on the market for a $45 million, a bid to make Mr. Duker a tidy profit while skyrocketing him back into the record books, his purchase having since been surpassed at the $31.5 million Super Ink penthouse.

After only 17 days on the market, the crystalline penthouse came off. In a true sign of market madness, had it sold so fast? No, listing agent Leonard Steinberg of Prudential Douglas Elliman informs us, nor has it been rented. "It will be back late this year or next," he said without explanation.

So things are swell in Tribeca, but not yet out of control.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

The buyer is Kaelen Farncombe, a Toronto-born, Parsons-graduated designer whose designs Women's Wear Daily has likened to "choose-your-own-adventure books." What sort of adventures might she plan for her new pad, which city records reveal she paid $4.15 million for?

Perhaps a dinner party, as Stribling's Cathy Taub enthuses about the condo's layout in her listing: "Exceptionally beautiful wide plank imported floors are laid throughout the apartment. There is a chef's kitchen with a six-burner professional Wolf range with dual oven, a beautiful white farmhouse kitchen sink with apron front, Sub-Zero fridge and lustrous veined white marble countertops."

And there is lots to love for a fashionable lady like Ms. Farncombe. "All the design choices accentuate quality and craft and all of the details are simply too numerous to mention-this is an example of a property that needs to be seen and experienced to be fully appreciated," Ms. Taub writes. Just like a Kaelen-brand outfit!

As for Mr. Berryman, with a new album on the way, he will probably be touring too much to use the home. It has proven a worthwhile investment all the same, as he bought it for only $2.65 million in July 2009, though it also sold for less than the $4.5 million he first put it on the market for in December.

Read past Manhattan Transfers here. >>

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo