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

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.

But is it really worth paying $37,946 a month to have twice-a-day housekeeping and people to bring you a cup of coffee or press your shirts at constant beck and call? (Cable TV, window washings and bath amenities are also included).

“You are really looking at buyers who, in order to maintain a staff in any residence that could deliver all of the things that are deliverable at the Carlyle, would have to look at spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on that staff,” Brown Harris Stevens broker Kathy Sloane told The Times.

Really?

Fortunately, the hotel lifestyle can be had for less at the Sherry-Netherland, which only charges $6.03 a square foot, or the Pierre—basically a huge bargain at $3.37. Or the wealthy can always move into a normal co-op for an average of $1.70 a square foot, hire a full-time housekeeper and make their own coffee (e gads!).

The Times notes that the maintenance fees don't cover dog walking or lush flower arrangements or any of the other luxuries you might imagine would be a part of life at the Carlyle. Not that the hotel can't arrange to have your dogs walked or your tables graced with rare blooms—but it will cost you extra. Although residents do get discounts on spa services and the parking garage. Which should come as a real relief to someone who's shelling out tens of thousands of dollars a month to have staff members at every corner.

But there's twice a day housekeeping! gushes one broker. Twice A Day.

Not mentioned: are tips included? How about pillow mints?

kvelsey@observer.com

When the storied Stanhope Hotel turned luxury condop in 2007, sales were sluggish, even in that pre-Lehman gilded age. After more than a year on the market, the grand duplex penthouse at the rebranded 995 Fifth Avenue did go into contract. Listed for $47.5 million, it sold to Claude Wasserstein (or Bruce, rather) for a leanly chopped $34,758,839.

According to industry sources, the half-French third wife of the late Lazard tycoon and New York magazine owner, Bruce Wasserstein, is now attempting to quietly list the 7,000-square-foot penthouse with Sotheby's Mon Ling Landegger—for $65 million.

According to several sources at different brokerage houses, Ms. Landegger has been calling individual brokers to give word of the listing in hopes someone would have an interested client. While one source remembered Ms. Landegger naming the price as $60 million, three other sources confirmed it at $65 million. But as one top Brown Harris Stevens broker pointed out, "It frankly doesn't matter if it's $60 or $65—anyone who is looking at it for $60 would also be looking for $65."

Many brokers believed the apartment had been sold to Ms. Wasserstein for closer to its $47.5 million listing price, which would have made the $65 million asking slightly more palatable. But when The Observer confirmed through city records that the penthouse traded for under $35 million, reactions were incredulous. "What did she do?" exclaimed one broker. "Pour gold oil in the walls?"

Apparently, Ms. Wasserstein has completely remodeled what was a sponsor unit, and has done so beautifully. Though, as one source noted drily, "I don't know what she did but she certainly didn't add $30 million."

The 11-room apartment has 5,000 square feet of balconies and terraces overlooking the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Central Park and includes a rooftop addition and 11-foot ceilings.

Amenities at the converted Stanhope—which, incidentally, is on leased land, so one would be paying $65 million to lease a penthouse—include a private La Palestra spa and breakfast lounge, a library and an on-call wine specialist. Only one apartment is currently available in the building-the much-hyped, $28.5 million listing on the 16th floor-but Ms. Wasserstein's would make two.

Ms. Wasserstein, a former producer at CBS, and her late husband had two children together but separated in 2007. The cause of Bruce Wasserstein's untimely death last October at age 61 remains unconfirmed but is believed to be related to an irregular heartbeat. His sister was the Tony- and Pulitzer-winning playwright, Wendy Wasserstein (pictured with Claude), writer of The Heidi Chronicles, also the victim of an untimely death, in 2006.

At the time of the Stanhope purchase, Bruce Wasserstein was living in a combined two-unit apartment at 927 Fifth with his fourth wife, Angela Chao, who continues to reside there. His second wife, Christine, with whom the über-investor had three children, kept the couple's 15-room apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue (until selling it for $34 million in 2008).

That makes at least three Wassertain-related apartments along Museum Mile. One down, two to go. As one source confirmed, "Bruce doesn't ever give up his homes."

cmalle@observer.com