Catch her in Carnegie Hill. (ABC/Donna Svennevik)

When we saw that Nightline co-host Cynthia McFadden had sold her three-bedroom co-op at 129 East 69th Street last week, we wondered where she would be moving. Like the 11:35 p.m. time slot on ABC, a pre-war co-op in a white glove Lenox Hill building is prime real estate.

The answer is Carnegie Hill (and, if you're watching ABC, it's 12:35 a.m.). The famed journalist tells The Observer that she and her teenaged son are upgrading to a four-story brownstone on the Upper East Side neighborhood.

"It has beautiful qualities—squeaky stairs, old fireplaces, a great kitchen. It's a wonderful place to entertain," said Ms. McFadden, who had just come back from Washington DC after interviewing Hillary Clinton. (If you're wondering whether Jimmy Kimmel has ever interviewed Hillary Clinton the answer is no, he has not.)

When Ms. McFadden is not speaking with the former Secretary of State and possibly future POTUS, she's planning to do a lot of cooking and gardening in the new place.

"Work has me on the road a lot, but I'm really a homebody," she said. "You'll find me with dirty hands in the backyard."

Ms. McFadden told us that the she bought the new place under ask, for some $5 million; it was listed with Brown Harris Stevens brokers Ann Jeffery and Daniel Kessler. Corocoran broker Sharon Baum, who sold Ms. McFadden's co-op for $3.23 million, represented her in this transaction.

Besides a bigger kitchen and a garden, the newswoman had another reason for making the change.

"The house is not huge, but it seems huge to me. I have a teenaged son, so this allows him to escape," said Ms. McFadden. "I just hope he'll allow his mother to come up to the fourth floor to fumigate."

kvelsey@observer.com

That's solidarity! But Ms. McFadden always was irreproachably committed to her career.

Although our collective mental image of the late night newswoman is in front of the bright lights of Times Square, Ms. McFadden selected a more soporific setting for her home, buying the eleventh-floor spread for $3.18 million back in 2004. Nine years and many major news event later, she has sold the apartment for $3.23 million, city records show.

And no, the buyer is not Jimmy Kimmel. It's private equity power couple Susannah and Thomas Carrier. They Carriers are not just good at investing, they're also good at bargaining. The couple convinced Ms. McFadden to settle for less than her very reasonable $3.45 million asking price. A $50,000 increase over nearly a decade of ownership isn't very good appreciation for Manhattan real estate, but the history of price adjustments indicate that she was motivated to sell. We all know how news reporters hate a stale story.

Ms. McFadden listed the apartment with Corcoran brokers Sharon Baum and David Enloe last May. She tried a $3.9 million ask during the first month before quickly dropping it down a little, then a little more. Was it the dining room wallpaper? With the exception of that wacky print, the eight-room apartment is a  classic Upper East Side spread, with a wood-burning fireplace in the master bedroom, a red-paneled library, grand windows and "a gracious central gallery."

There's no new sale under Ms. McFadden's name, so it's unclear if she, like Nightline, will be moving to an adjacent spot or another time and place altogether.

kvelsey@observer.com

Was the sky, or the wedding-cake ceiling, the limit?

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.

Several sources told The Observer that Ronson's widow Angelika and children have decided to stay put in their puzzle-piece palace. Or at least as "put" as renowned jet-setters said to spend much of their time in Monaco can stay.

Does this also mean they've decided to carry on Ronson's vision of re-assembling the entire house and returning it to its former glory? As they like to say, in for a penny, in for a pound. Or rather, in for $33.95 million (the amount the four apartments cost the Ronson family), in for $100 million (or more!)?

We'd wager that this clan is not quite so cavalier with its dough and that the decision to pull the property had more to do with a lack of interest. None of the former listing brokers—it was held by Corcoran brokers Sharon Baum, Leighton Candler and Deborah Grubman, as well as Stribling broker Alexa Lambert, returned The Observer's phone calls, so we can't be sure, but we'd say the agglomeration was not so popular with buyers and the family is waiting for a later date to list the individual units.

A $72 million sale would set a townhouse sale record and then some (the largest sale to date remains the $53 million dollar sale of the Harkness Mansion). The co-op record lingers at the same threshold, having been set this spring with the sale of the Courtney Sale Ross apartment for $52.5 million. And no matter how magnificent this corner mansion might have been, the units weren't even attached. After all, an ultra high net townhouse lover would probably be inclined to go for the intact Woolworth Mansion, listed at $90 million, rather than bribing/begging his neighbors to move out and then undertaking a huge renovation.

"I’m sure it couldn’t be bought," one broker not associated with the listing told us. "For god’s sake, it was a lot of different units."

kvelsey@observer.com

The couple occupied a duplex the genteel Lennox Hill building. The 11-room spread came on the market in February for $10.2 million, but that  was a tad too much space for the buyers, couple-on-the-town Andrew Frankel and Kim Saperstein. According to city records, they purchased the top half of the duplex exactly half the asking price $5.1 million.

Just yesterday, The Times was crowing that combo units were the way to go, but not, apparently, for Mr. Fankel, who works in finance, and Ms. Saperstein. Once they clear out every ledge, mantle, shelf and tabletop of its objects d'art, The Observer reckons there will be plenty of room in the home.

The duplex was listed by Corcoran agents Sharon Baum and Heather Sargent, neither of whom could immediately be reached for comment.

According to a floorplan from their listing, the top floor has a massive 500-square-foot bedroom plus another measuring  but 150 square feet. That would be perfect since Ms. Saperstein is about to become Ms. Saperstein Frankel—the two are engaged to be married, according to Mr. Frankel's office. We see a nursery in the apartment's future.

The home also boasts a wet bar off the dining room, three bathrooms, and a working fireplace in the living room, pretty much what you would expect for the Upper East Side. It is an area the Frankel Sapersteins know well, he living at nearby 200 East 72nd Street and she the even nearer 30 East 71st Street.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this post misstated the price as $5.6 million. The Observer regrets the mistake.

At 875 Park Avenue, a six-bedroom, six-bathroom co-op with 75 feet of frontage and a private elevator became the latest in a string of disappointing uber sales. Like the rest, the fifth-floor duplex--owned by the co-op board president no less--had everything going for it. Except, of course, timing.

This particular 12-room apartment was listed for $17 million last January by its owners, Harvey Schulweis, a former Lazard Freres partner turned owner of a private real estate investment fund, and his wife, Carol.

After falling victim to the Madoff scandal, the Schulweises haven't had a smooth time selling their apartment either. Mr. Schulweis transfered owernship to his wife mid-year for around $7 million. The apartment sat on the market for another six months until it recently sold at a 20 percent discount.

The "enormous" and "highly unique" co-op, according to the listing by Rolls Royce-driving Corcoran power broker Sharon Baum, has sold for $14.05 million to Tami Schneider, the wife of recently deceased Highbridge Capital managing director Richard Schneider.

Let's raise a Cristal-filled glass to a better New Year for the luxury market.

lkusisto@observer.com

The petite and exclusive co-op lounges Siren-like in the Guggenheim's honeycomb shadow on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 88th Street. The 13-apartment, 14-story building was built by Shelton, Mindel and Associates as a private residential gallery for luxury loving contemporary art collectors. Jerry Spiegel,  the Long Island strip mall mogul who put Hicksville on the map, and his culturati wife, Emily, faithfully upheld that tradition.

According to one broker with knowledge of the apartment, the couple, avid patrons of the arts who served on the board of the Museum of Modern Art, converted the four-bedroom family apartment into a two-bedroom better suited to display their neighbor-caliber art collection, which included contemporary art cornerstones by Donald Judd and Ellsworth Kelly.

Key-Ventures' A. Laurance Kaiser IV sold the Spiegels the apartment over a decade ago and told The Observer, "It's a very contemporary, very exciting apartment." The Corcoran listing described the apartment with slightly more pomp as a "distinctive property with an exceptional provenance" and 180 degrees of "unparallelled and dramatic vistas of Manhattan" including the Reservoir and the Central Park West skyline. The originally 12-room apartment has "special mobile walls" that can be opened and closed for entertaining or art storage; and the apartment's custom design work includes, "limestone, coffered ceilings in a gridwork pattern and a stained cherrywood herringbone 'yellow brick road' floor in the gallery."

Soothsaying Brown Harris Stevens broker, Kathryn Steinberg, noted of the sale, "It just shows that for the good family apartments people are waiting and ready to buy."

Ms. Baum did not return requests for comment.

cmalle@observer.com

Ms. Baum, who dated Michael Bloomberg after Harvard Business School, sold a record $40 million townhouse, and is known for wearing a diamond brooch that matches her Rolls' plate, said at the time that she'd be using a Vespa instead.

The scooter experiment did not end well.

"My husband of 40 years," she said last week, "whom I love more than the whole wide world, was riding it and had an accident." He was driving in Greenwich, Conn., when a car stopped short in front of him, she explained. "Broke his leg in three places. Was all banged up. Bleeding. I was not on the Vespa with him, thank god, because I usually ride with him."

Mr. Baum was on crouches for their son's wedding in Los Angeles.

"We're not riding any more two-wheeled vehicles," said the broker, who turns 70 in January. "As much as we hated to, because it was so attractive and had almost no miles, a man came this very morning and paid cash and took the Vespa away. I got an email from my husband: 'So sad the Vespa is gone,' with a little cry figure."

What will she drive now? "I didn't get rid of the Rolls, because the sentiment was so strong, the emails that I got and everything, saying that I should keep the Rolls. So, no, I still have the Rolls."

It would be nice if that was a sign of the times for New York in general: A proud return to once-hidden opulence! But it's not. In the past month, Julian Schnabel's triplex penthouse sold for $10.5 million instead of $32 million, Walt Disney's grandniece lost $3.55 million on a West End Avenue deal, and the $64 million Sloane Mansion was re-listed for $39 million.

mabelson@observer.com

What must have really bothered the brokers, this small batch in the running to have the odd honor of listing Bernie Madoff’s two-floor apartment between Park and Lexington avenues, is that they were all corralled together. “It was a strange and, frankly, slightly insulting way to handle it,” one broker there said. “Everyone in that room has pitched pretty important exclusives. I’ve never had to go on a cattle call before.”

Last year, when agents auditioned to list the late Brooke Astor’s Park Avenue duplex, they were interviewed separately in her famously lacquered library. It went relatively smoothly—even though they had to smile and nod while sitting in front of her scandal-stained son, Anthony Marshall, plus bankers from the firm that became Astor’s court-appointed guardians.

The broker meeting for the Madoff penthouse, which has been rumored to be going on the market since January, was stranger. “Everybody kind of wandered around the apartment, and they herded us into the living room,” another broker said. “I just don’t see how they can make an evaluation on who to use.”

There are a lot of options. According to three sources, brokers that have been contacted include Corcoran’s Sharon Baum (famous for her SOLD 1 license plate and its matching diamond brooch); John B. Glass and Caroline E.Y. Guthrie from the blue-blooded Edward Lee Cave division at Brown Harris Stevens; Stribling’s Alexa Lambert, who has handled sales at the Plaza; Sotheby’s top broker, Serena Boardman, and vice president Anne Corey; and Elliman’s Daniela Kunen and Sabrina Saltiel, who are listing the incarcerated Phillip Bennett’s Park Avenue duplex penthouse, plus a lesser-known colleague, Whitney Gettinger.

They came armed! Ms. Baum had Corcoran CEO Pamela Liebman with her; Ms. Lambert had her firm’s founder, Elizabeth Stribling; and Elliman CEO Dottie Herman was there along with the head of the firm’s Manhattan brokerage, Steven James. John Burger, the Brown Harris broker who told The Times this month that he’d offered to forgo a commission, was not there.

As it turned out, the meeting with the federal marshals was more of a group info session than an audition. “What they said was, ‘I wish we could give it to all of you,’” Mr. James explained. “‘Look and see what the product is; advise us on what we should do; here’s the deadline for the proposal, and may the best person win.’”

By the end of last week, brokers sent in their proposals for how they would market the place, how much they would list it for (their pitch can’t be too discouragingly low nor too misleadingly high) and what kind of commission they’d demand (which, as Mr. Burger’s offer showed, will probably be modest).

One of the agents there guessed that the penthouse is worth $8 million, but will sell for less because of its ignominy—and its condition, which, despite Mr. Madoff’s reputation for punctiliousness, is imperfect. “So not triple-mint,” an agent said. “That to me was incredibly surprising.”

“I thought it was eerie,” another said. “The place was left as if someone got out in the middle of the night. All the clothes were there, there was a note, there was a cup of coffee on, I think, his desk. The only that was gone were the photos: the picture frames had no pictures.”

mabelson@observer.com

Corcoran senior vice president Sharon Baum, who briefly dated Michael Bloomberg after graduating from Harvard Business School in 1965, has been chauffeured to and from her $20 million listings in a Rolls-Royce for the last 12 years.

Her license plate says SOLD 1. So does a matching diamond brooch.

After rereading Steven Gaines' soapy 2005 real estate tell-all The Sky's the Limit, which tells of Ms. Baum keeping a bottle of Grey Poupon in her "chauffeur-driven, butter-colored Bentley," this reporter inquired about the Rolls/Bentley discrepancy. "I don't know why people get that mixed up," Ms. Baum sighed. "It is a Rolls-Royce Silver Spur. And I've always had a Silver Spur."

Her most recent is hunter green with camel-colored leather upholstery, rented from a dealership in Greenwich, Conn. Three weeks ago, her chauffeur Abdul Jafeer ("a wonderful driver that's been with me for, like, 11 years") was alone when something terrible happened: "He was standing outside, the door was open, and this rickety old pickup truck comes along, hits the door. Could have killed him! So I'm in antique season, and it's three to four weeks to get it repaired," she said. "Anytime anything happens when you have a Rolls-Royce, if anyone hits your mirror or anything, it's like $1,000 and up. Our Rolls-Royce is a magnet for things happening."

When asked how she'd get to listings (like the $19.5 million, 18-room duplex at 279 Central Park West) she said: "I may start using another vehicle, for something different."

And that new vehicle, she said, is a yellow Vespa.

"You have to see it! It's really sexy. It's got a custom-leather leopard decorated striped seat, and you know how they have that little carrying case, that little round thing? It matches!" Later she let it be known that the Vespa in the photograph above is just a non-customized display model. Hers will be better.

"Yeah, it's pretty sexy… I'll have the client hop on," she said.

It's frankly distressing that Sharon Baum would even consider such a shift—not just because of the novelty of a Fifth Avenue doyenne riding a yellow/leopard Vespa. More importantly, for over a decade, Ms. Baum's Rolls and her diamond motto SOLD 1 have been symbols of uptown real estate's deep-pocketed glitz. The Rolls-Royce rolls along; prices rise skyward.

Even if the new scooter is outrageously customized, her evolution from the Rolls-Royce might portend that the Upper East Side won't be so haute and flashy in this new, less steady New York era.

But Ms. Baum's children don't worry about symbolism. "They're disowning me already," she said, "because they think it's too dangerous."

But then came this week's Newsweek cover story on Mayor Bloomberg's '08 plan:

That is so romantic.

But it gets better!