Sapir lost his silver ice buckets in a theft.

Billionaire cabbie-turned-real-estate mogul Tamir Sapir was recently the victim of theft at his $20 million Long Island mansion after a construction worker allegedly stole four antique silver champagne buckets worth $200,000, according to Newsday. But the real crime is that Mr. Sapir didn't even notice that his extravagant booze buckets were gone until an auction house called him months after the fact. Being a billionaire is hard!

Apparently, Mr. Sapir only learned of the theft when Sotheby's notified him that construction worker Anatoliy Maryuk had tried to fence two of the buckets—made in France and worth $50,000 a pop—to the auction company in September 2011. Mr. Maryuk had, at this point, allegedly sold the two other buckets on Ebay.

In Mr. Sapir's defense, $200,000 is kind a drop in the silver champagne bucket when you're worth $2 billion. And it takes a lot of time and energy to manage a real estate empire as well as one's personal, palatial dwellings, let alone worry about every piece of $50,000 kitchen equipment. And while we'd like to believe that the life of a real estate mogul with a sprawling Long Island mansion means drinking expensive champagne every evening, we understand that even people who can afford to chug the finest bubbly sometimes prefer other libations. Besides, when one has a staff, one doesn't necessarily interact with one's household belongings on a daily basis—perhaps the butler simply assumed that the antiques had been misplaced by a maid and started using one of the other silver champagne buckets.

Sadly, if court documents filed in 2010 are true, there might be another explanation for the mogul's absent-mindedness. While Mr. Sapir appears to have been busy managing his extensive personal and real estate holdings these last few years—selling the Duke Semans mansion to Carlos Slim for $44 million, importing endangered and exotic animal carcases into the country on his yacht, buying the perfect Long Island mansion, he has allegedly been suffering from aphasia—"a deteriorating mental condition" since 1998. The condition has left him unable to form comprehensible sentences in either English or his native Russian, and to do little other than sign his name, according to court documents that came to light as part of the $130 million lawsuit against him. (Although one wonders why a man who can longer form comprehensible sentences is allowed to sign documents.)

But if Mr. Sapir is no longer calling the shots at his business empire (rumors abound that his son Alex is the one running the show these days), surely there's someone looking after his personal affairs who should be safeguarding his very expensive champagne buckets? And making sure that 150-foot yacht isn't filled with stuffed Bengal tiger heads when it enters U.S. waters (being shipped on an Italian freighter no less)?

For his part, Mr. Maryuk, who is being charged with second-degree larceny, denies that he pilfered the pricey buckets, according to his lawyer. In the meantime, we'll toast to the truth being uncovered in a timely manner.

Summetime, and the living's easy. (Corcoran/Newsday)

Tamir Sapir may have sold his mansion on Fifth Avenue's gold coast last summer, getting a whopping $44 million from Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, but this year he has found an equally impressive spread to call home for the hot months.

Mr. Sapir, the cabbie-turned-city-shaping-developer, is renting a huge compound in Southhampton that once belonged to another real estate power player, according to the Post.

The waterfront estate — two homes on a bluff with stairs to the beach — includes a pool, two spas overlooking the bay, a tennis court, two cabanas and a generator. The main house, a traditional shingle-style home, has 10 bedrooms and 7½ bathrooms.

The property, once owned by fellow New York real estate bigwig Andrew Farkas, was listed at $260,000 from Memorial Day through Labor Day. In the past, Sapir, who was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, spent summers on his yacht. Now, multiple Russian billionaires have been spotted on the way in and out of his rental.

It could be Mr. Sapir had to flee his float, having been busted two years ago for harboring exotic animals. Or it could be he has grown seasick, as Curbed revealed his "deteriorating condition" last August.

As for Mr. Farkas, The Observer broke the story about his purchase of the home seven years ago. He paid $5.4 million in 2004, and it was on the market last year for more than $9 million. Maybe he got tired of all the Russian billionaires hanging around.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Seal in '06. Those were the days.

Gregory Spock is used to performing librettos before rapt audiences in concert halls from Hartford to Florence. Recently, the 26-year-old has found more intimate venues within the exposed-brick walls of New York townhouses. A Roland keyboard or a baby grand to his right, a pink bow tie around his neck, a songbook in his hands—Verdi always wows `em—Mr. Spock delivers bursts of baroque beauty, all for salesmanship.

Mr. Spock joined Manhattan brokerage Rubicon Property four months ago, after receiving his broker’s license in the winter. He said his new boss liked him for his creativity, which means saving money on those showings.

“A lot of people have food or wine now, but the entertainment isn’t thought out.”

Because who isn’t lulled into signing a multi-million dollar contract by the plaintive moans of Aida?

During last decade’s real estate boom, the real estate party, usually in a newly built condo tower, was a staple of the industry. After the recession hit, nobody could much afford them. Now they seem to be hobbling back, along with the real estate market.

“In some ways, it’s just kind of a relief,” said the blogger-turned-flogger Joey Arak. Mr. Arak spent years penning “Hangover Reports” while he was senior editor of Curbed New York, and now he is helping to throw them. “During the downturn, there was a feeling that it was wrong to celebrate, wrong to spend money, wrong to buy real estate. Now it’s such a relief that we don’t have to worry about that anymore and can just enjoy ourselves.”

Mr. Arak said the turning point was a party last summer at Williamsburg development 58 Metropolitan, a hulking faux warehouse loft number near the waterfront. It was not very fancy, just fried chicken from Pies ‘n’ Thighs and a few kegs from Brooklyn Brewery. “But it was the first party anyone had invited us to in ages, and people were celebrating and enjoying themselves, and it was nice to know you could do that again.”

When people who know speak of real estate soirees, a blustery night on March 2, 2006 almost inevitably comes up. That was when developers Gary Barnett and Shaya Boymelgreen threw dueling parties at their respective projects—the Aldyn, then still a vacant lot on Riverside South, and 20 Pine: The Collection, one of so many odes to FiDi debauchery from that era. Uptown, Seal performed. Downtown, John Legend.

These days, revelers are more likely to find a decent cheese plate and some cocktails from hip speakeasy PDT or a food demonstration by one of Danny Meyer’s chefs and an assortment of quaffable wine. “If you’re lucky, there’s Champagne and it’s good,” said Leonard Steinberg, a top broker at Douglas Elliman. One of the big differences between the parties of today and those of yore is that in the past there were bachanals. Now we have box socials.

“I remember when the go-go dancers came out at the William Beaver House,” Mr. Steinberg said. The ugly yellow obelisk of condos was erected in the FiDi by Andre Balazs and Tamir Sapir. It fell into foreclosure last year and was converted into chintzy rentals. “When the go-go dancers come out, you know the party is over.”

When Tamir Sapir sold the majestic Duke-Semans Mansion across from the Met to Carlos Slim last summer, the brokers representing the seller, Brown Harris Stevens' Paula Del Nunzio and Shirley Mueller, sued Sapir when the deal was arranged on the side by Slim's own real estate swami, up-and-comer Soly Halabi. The brokers had already found a buyer at $37 million, below the $40 million Sapir first paid, while Halabi turned up Slim with a much wider $44 million offer.

In the suit, the BHS brokers alleged that Sapir waited just long enough for his contract with them to expire so he would not have to pay an $880,000 commission. It would have been a costly arrangement for Sapir, whose real estate empire and health are in decline.

Sapir worked out a deal with Del Nunzio and Mueller after all, settling last month, according to The Times, though the details have not been disclosed.

Which means we can put the whole ordeal behind us and focus on what really matters -- the kinda-sorta-once-again Go-Go high-end market. The important thing is that the sale occurred," Del Nunzio told The Times. "A $44 million sale occurred in these current market conditions. That is utterly phenomenal."

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

First, the magazine estimates the developer's worth at about $700 million, "still wealthy indeed but not nearly enough to make this year's rich list."

Further, Mr. Sapir puts full responsibility for all of his recent real estate moves of recent years--many of them ill-fated--on his son:

In a 2009 videotaped deposition involving a pending suit in Las Vegas, Sapir is asked about a $21 million development deal he is accused of reneging on. "My son is doing the business," Sapir answers. "'Papa, give me money,' and that's it." Sapir says he has no knowledge of the property's price or its appraisal, explaining: "My son--I speak little English. My son is in the business. I am the money man, and that's it. Why am I expected to know so much?"

There's more. Read the whole treatment here.

Here are some deets on Mr. Slim's new digs, care of the Journal:

The townhouse, at 1009 Fifth Avenue, is 27-feet wide and said to be the only private mansion left on Fifth Avenue, after most were knocked down when a wave of apartment towers went up in the 1920s.

The 1901 house, known as the Duke-Semans mansion, was owned by descendants of the original owner, tobacco magnate Benjamin N. Duke, until 2006.

Read the whole article here.

Until now, the interior and rooftop views of the Duke Semans Mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue were about as tightly guarded as Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison's dangerous liaison--though the recently released photographs of the $50 million Fifth Avenue mansion's gold filigree Beaux-Arts interiors and Rococo painted pediments are more Choderlos de Laclos than Twilight Saga.

VIEW SLIDESHOW > MANSION FOR THE MASSES?

The eight-story mansion on the corner of 82nd Street boasts 27 feet of prime Fifth Avenue square footage (one of only three private residences on the park privy Gold Coast) while a 103-foot long façade ambles down 82nd Street. Bought in 2006 by Russian oil magnate, former cab driver and current real estate czar Tamir Sapir for $40 million from previous owner Doris Duke, the home was built in 1901 by Ms. Duke's family and remained a family heirloom for over 100 years until Mr. Sapir swooped in four years ago.

Brown Harris Stevens' queen, Paula Del Nunzio, who has the listing, told The Observer via email, "until now, the interior detail and incomparable scale of 1009 Fifth Avenue--and stunning roof top views--have been seen only by qualified buyers who have signed a confidentiality agreement." Now four detail photos of the original interiors and two rooftop views are available to the masses with the listing details. Is the revolution underway?

cmalle@observer.com

VIEW SLIDESHOW > MANSION FOR THE MASSES?

“Are you sure?” asked one downtown broker incredulously, when told that Claremont Preparatory High School intended to lease 255,000 square feet in the 21-story building.

This bit of good news, at least, appears to be true: Although the Sapir Organization has not officially announced the deal, school officials said on Feb. 27 that papers had been signed and its inaugural class would start in the fall. The landlord also announced another recent deal, signed in December, a 65,000-square-foot lease with Interactive Data Corporation.

It’s been a long haul for 100 Church to this spate of positivity. Bought by real estate magnate (and former taxi driver) Tamir Sapir for $65 million in 1997, 100 Church has gone through more crises and reinventions than Oprah: Only two major tenants returned after the building was devastated in the attacks on the nearby World Trade Center, and leasing has since been glacial, leaving the building over 50 percent vacant and the emptiest in downtown.

The Sapirs briefly considered taking the building residential, and decided again on commercial when the office market ticked up in 2006. Cushman & Wakefield was retained to remarket the building in 2006, and was dropped for CB Richard Ellis in 2007. Along the way, several high-profile leases disintegrated: a group of toy industry firms in 2005, the Omnicom Group in 2007, and Newsweek in 2008 all fell through.

Claremont Prep, it would seem, is a heavenly match—and also a concession to the commercial reality, which has midtown office rents at historic lows and downtown becoming increasingly popular for families, as a recent Times article pointed out. Owner MetSchools Inc. wanted something within walking distance of its primary and middle school at 41 Broad Street. School officials expect to slowly fill 100 Church’s ninth and 10th floors with about 480 students while they build an underground aquatics facility, rooftop basketball courts, a black box theater, and another whole floor on the top of the building. 

“I think the good news for us is that they’ve got a separate entrance,” said Mark Hepsworth, president of institutional business for Interactive Data, which signed not long before.

INLAID IN THE FLOOR OF 100 Church’s multimillion dollar new lobby is a gigantic globe of multicolored stone, inscribed in what looks like bronze with the words, “THE SAPIR ORGANIZATION.” The landlord’s mark is evident elsewhere: a large circular plaque on an outside column, custom floor mats with the emblem of a big cat; the lobby itself is almost tsarist in its luxury, with Swarovski crystal starbursts and a sweeping stone fountain.

The drab 1950s exterior has yet to quite catch up, but it’s trying. Windows are being replaced floor by floor, and an Italian company is hand-painting each of the flat blue panels to look like marble. It’s all part of an aggressive campaign to position the building, still the emptiest of Sapir’s nine Manhattan holdings.  

But the journey has been at times bumpy and publicly so. Sapir has been sued by Newmark Knight Frank and CBRE over unpaid commissions, and that kind of reputation—coupled with being relatively new to the game—dies hard. “They’re a tough landlord,” said one tenant-side broker who asked to remain anonymous. “In this market, I’ve got options. And I’m going to drive them towards landlords who have been really solid members of the community for a long time. … People who don’t play fair, who don’t pay their commissions on time, people remember that.”

Not so, says Sapir managing director Mark Kozhin. “The current management is completely different from prior management,” he wrote in an email. “What happened in the past is no longer relevant.” (Alex Sapir could not be reached for comment.)

The building’s current leasing agent, Brad Gerla of CBRE, has explanations for all of the previous deals gone sour. The toy industry “couldn’t get their act together,” he said. “That deal was not a lost deal, that was a deal they never did.” And though Newsweek had signed, they backed out when a space on Hudson Street proved too attractive to resist. “It was never a deal that we lost for any reason other than the market had softened, and other spaces became available,” Mr. Gerla added.

By Mr. Gerla’s count, the building still has 300,000 square feet of available space. It's leasing for $36 a square foot, according to CoStar.

With the added peculiarity of a school, 100 Church already has an odd tenant mix. Luxury magazine publisher Niche Media takes up the seventh floor, a well-lit and fashionably redone space with a legion of well-dressed, predominantly female 20-something employees. Below them are the 650-odd lawyers of the New York City Law Department, with offices that one employee described as “like an ordinary building, nothing fancy, nothing different.”

Most of the remaining small tenants work up on the 16th floor, including the Council of Jewish Émigré Community Organizations, which, according to one worker, occupies the space by the grace of Tamir Sapir, a Russian emigrant himself.

Laura Andrassy, the ex-wife of professional golfer Greg Norman, recently received a $100 million-plus divorce settlement. The divorce was finalized earlier this year and today the Wall Street Journal reported that Ms. Andrassy has gone into contract on a $7.55 million estate on Southampton's Wyandanch Lane. The 0.92-acre property is near the ocean, has an outdoor pool, and a 3,500-square-foot house Ms. Andrassy plans to tear down. Sure, Mr. Norman may have remarried recently--he married former tennis star Chris Evert in June--but Ms. Andrassy has a brand new summer home to show off. 

Meanwhile, earlier this week, The Observer's Max Abelson reported that Bella Sapir, the ex-wife of billionaire Tamir Sapir, has closed on a $8,895,000 penthouse at the new Veneto luxury building on East 53rd Street. The 4,511-square-foot apartment has an outdoor space of 1,095 square feet and is Ms. Sapir's second home; she also owns a place at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street. 

And then of course there is the much criticized Heather Mills, who has angered Paul McCartney fans with the $50 million divorce settlement that she took to the States and used to buy a $5 million condo in Richard Meier's glass tower at 173 Perry Street, the New York Post reported in June. Ms. Mills, who already has a residence in Sussex, England, chose a condo with views of the Hudson, two bedrooms, two baths, two balconies and private elevator landing. (Other occupants in the building have included Calvin Klein, Nicole Kidman, and Martha Stewart.) 

This is all very encouraging, really. After all, even as the real estate market collapses, there will always be divorces, and therefore angry ex-wives eager to spend their settlements on amazing New York real estate.

Alex Sapir, 26, tumbled onto the New York City real-estate radar a year ago in March, taking the reins of his father Tamir’s real-estate empire as president of the Sapir Organization. Donald Trump Jr., 29, became executive vice president of development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization in 2004.

The project that they’re spearheading together, the Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium New York, is scheduled for a 2009 opening in Hudson Square—an area of Manhattan, if there ever was one, sorely in need of the touch of cool that only the moneyed young rich could provide. It’s in Soho, but not of Soho; instead, it’s a warehouse and loft district littered with empty storefronts and vacant office buildings.

“We want it to be the most iconic building in all of downtown and possibly in New York City,” Mr. Sapir told The Observer from his Mercedes, just returning to Manhattan from a vacation in Miami.

Mr. Trump, who has adapted over the last few years the workaholic habits of his father, said that Mr. Sapir’s a good listener. “He understands that we’re all young in this industry, and we need to be open to other people’s opinions,” Mr. Trump told The Observer. “We’re all working together to make sure it’s a true five-star downtown hotel.”

The 413-unit condo-hotel hybrid, one of only a handful in Manhattan, will offer 360-degree views of the city and beyond.

Assuming it gets built.

Controversy has dogged the Trump SoHo seemingly from its inception, leaving Mr. Sapir and Mr. Trump, whom one mutual intimate described as “socially friendly” but not necessarily friends, a stern task as they step further into the spotlight turned on by their fathers.

Developers announced the project last spring as a “transient hotel,” where well-heeled guests can buy one of the luxury rooms. In November, the developers obtained a building permit for the project in the low-rise manufacturing zone without public review, sparking criticism from city officials and preservationists.

Although transient hotels are legal in manufacturing districts, critics say the “guests” will be more like “residents,” living in the hotel year-round. Opponents of the tower, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler and State Senator Tom Duane, have urged the city to enforce a stricter review of these projects, arguing that developers will be scouting manufacturing zones for sites to build towering condo-hotels masquerading as Trojan-horse transient hotels.

Although the city’s Planning Department is examining the complaints, changing the zoning laws will be a lengthy process, leaving Mr. Sapir and Mr. Trump space to muscle forward.

Right now, the Trump SoHo looks to be in limbo, with excavation at the site at Varick and Spring streets underway but construction still lacking. The city continues to review whether it’s more “condo” and less “hotel”—and, therefore, illegal.

Last week, after stepping out of a meeting with interior designer David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group, Mr. Sapir said that he’s working tirelessly on the building’s “timeless luxury,” poring over details until the early-morning hours in his Tribeca home.

“He has a very good feel for luxury,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Sapir. (Bayrock, an investment firm, is also involved in the Trump SoHo’s development, along with the Sapir and Trump organizations.) “He understands it and has a vision of what he wants to achieve in the look, and ultimately what the clients are going to see and feel.”

While Mr. Sapir is passionate about woods and fabrics, Mr. Trump’s forte is the business side.

“He is able to bring practicality and a level head to what could seem to be a difficult task,” Mr. Sapir said. “I think it has shown, from working together, that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. His father has really helped shape his personality in business—and so has mine.”

Tamir (Tom) Sapir cultivated an image as an eccentric risk-taker: a Soviet immigrant cab driver who opened an electronics store, invested in Russian oil, then renovated white-elephant office buildings during the 1990’s recession to assemble an impressive portfolio. Early last year, he bought the Duke Semans mansion on Fifth Avenue for $40 million, the highest price then for a New York townhouse.

The Sapir Organization now owns more than seven million square feet of Manhattan office space, including 100 Church Street and 2 Broadway.

“When people say ‘Sapir,’ I want it to be synonymous with a great landlord, a great developer and a great family,” Alex Sapir said. “I want us to be the most recognized name in real estate in the world.”

That honor (and burden), of course, now falls on the Trumps.

Growing an empire for decades, one with roots in Queens, Donald Trump Sr. has been the omniscient face of New York City real estate—fiery, swooping bangs, grin drenched in self-confidence, name in lights in the heavens—for at least the last 20 years, eliciting the sorts of love-hate emotions normally reserved for politicians and pro athletes.

His oldest son brings a new, slicked-back charm to the dynasty.

At 13, he got his first job as a dock attendant at the Trump Castle marina in Atlantic City, making minimum wage plus tips. In interviews, he describes a continual, intrinsic fascination with his father’s business; he joined the Trump Organization in 2001. He told Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph Magazine in 2005 that he inherited his father’s “natural security, or ego.”

“I can be my own person and not have to live under his shadow,” he told the magazine. “I look up to him in many ways—I’d like to be more like him in business—but I’m such a different person, it’s hard to compare us.”

Mr. Sapir said that he talks to his father “26 times a day,” but only on the phone, since Tamir Sapir doesn’t have an e-mail address. The elder Sapir is wintering in Mexico, working on a new villa development in Acapulco.

When Alex was old enough, he helped his father on weekends at the family electronics store near Madison Square Park. “I wasn’t the whiz kid making sales at age 9,” he said. “But just being there watching my father, you know—I was spending time with a brilliant person, and hopefully that rubs off.”

Meanwhile, Alex got his business-management degree from Fordham University and studied law at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. “I had some other ideas, but real estate is what worked,” he said.

He worked with his father on SDS Investments L.L.C., a private-equity real-estate fund with property in New York, Las Vegas and Miami, before graduating to become president of the Sapir Organization on March 8 last year.

“We’re usually in sync, but people disagree sometimes, and father and son disagree more than most people do,” the younger Mr. Sapir said. “But you suck it up—I respect his opinion more than anyone else’s.”

But it’s others’ opinions that will matter in the long run, with the eyes of many in a notoriously unforgiving business watching to see if Mr. Sapir and Mr. Trump can douse Hudson Square with a little condo-hotel glam.