By Kim Velsey 3/29 8:53pm

Stratospheric Sales

But is it art?

This Apartment Is Art, And Other Specious Claims to Justify Exorbitant Asking Prices

Today, the Pierre penthouse—what may well be the most lavish penthouse in all of New York—officially hit the market for $125 million—which is definitely the most lavish asking price in all of New York. It is also a full $55 million more than the penthouse was asking (and not getting) in 2007. But it’s art, you see.

“Because this is a one-of-a-kind penthouse, it was hard to set a price because nothing really compares. I think of it, and I believe the buyer will see it, as a work of art,” Sotheby’s broker Elizabeth Lee Sample told The New York Times, which reported the listing this morning. Read More

By Kim Velsey 8/24/12 1:14pm

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

The Carlyle: where the costs of the high life are particularly high.

Room Service and Housekeeping Are Awesome, But Are They $455,352 A Year Awesome?

For a lot of people, $455,352 is the kind of money that buys a nice house in the suburbs or a one-bedroom apartment in New York. But for some, it’s just the cost of annual maintenance fees on an apartment at one of the city’s hotel co-ops.

Paramount Pictures chairman Brad Grey drops a half-a-million dollars a year for the maintenance fees on his 3,000-square foot apartment at the Carlyle, The New York Times reports, which charges the city’s highest monthly maintenance fees of $10.23 per square foot. And he had to shell out $15 million to buy the apartment in the first place. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/04/12 3:01pm

Manhattan Transfers

6 Photos

Tishman's Apartment

Pierre Co-op With Ample Views of All Robert Tishman Built Sells For $3.82 M.

During his life, king contractor Robert V. Tishman played a role in many of Manhattan’s biggest construction projects and real estate deals, including the construction of of both World Trade Centers.

Among the less-impressive pieces of real estate that Tishman, who died in 2010 at age 94, had in his real estate portfolio was a pleasant, if largely unexceptional two-bedroom co-op in the Pierre. It has been sold by his estate for $3.82 million. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 8/15/11 2:37pm

Manhattan Transfers

The Pierre.

Roy Neuberger’s Pierre Co-op Sells for $10.4 M. (Corrected)

The estate of famed financier and modern art collector Roy Neuberger has sold his apartment at the Pierre. Mr. Neuberger died last year at age 107, having spent 101 of those years in New York City. The apartment was never officially listed, according to Max Dobens of Prudential Elliman, who has worked in the building and did not work on this particular deal.

The famous hotel, which opened in 1930, was purchased and reopened by Taj Hotels and Resorts in 2009, and currently has 140 hotel rooms, 49 suites and 77 co-op units.

The newest residents of the Pierre are Read More

By Nate Freeman 3/02/11 12:27am

Hijinks

Checking In, Sir? Booking a Room for Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen has a history with New York hotels. The latest round of jaw-dropping interviews (and the ensuing catchphrases) may have overshadowed that fateful weekend in October at the Plaza, but it remains a integral part of his legend.

Mr. Sheen booked the Eloise Suite and proceeded to orchestrate perhaps the ultimate hooker-laden, coke-fueled Read More

By Tom Acitelli 8/20/10 6:07pm

What HappenedGround Zero Mosque

The Week We Rocked the Mosque Story and Exposed Tony Malkin's Thing with Tall Towers

Sharif El-Gamal, the principal of SoHo Properties and would-be developer of the “ground zero mosque” (getting really tired of putting those quotation remarks around it, will stop soon), says he’s not going anywhere—though he would sell if the price were right.

Anthony Malkin, owner of the Empire State Building, isn’t too fond of the Read More

By Chloe Malle 8/17/10 7:55pm

Get A Load of Those Mellons! Newlywed Banking Heir Buys at The Pierre

Matthew Mellon has money to spare but that doesn’t mean the 46-year-old newlywed doesn’t drive a hard bargain. The heir to the Pittsburgh banking fortune and his recently wed wife, society siren and former Ralph Lauren designer, Rachel Hanley Mellon, just snagged a bargain two-bedroom at The Pierre. According to city records, the couple paid Read More

By Max Abelson 11:39pm

The Princess and the Pincuses

On Nov. 3, 2003, Lionel Pincus was standing in a tuxedo in the New York Public Library’s Astor Hall. It was the Library Lions gala, and everything was lovely. The venture capitalist’s longtime companion, Princess Firyal of Jordan, was there, and so were Lord Conrad Black, Veronica Hearst and Henry Louis Gates. Trumpets called guests Read More