- Max Abelson

But when the 44-year-old eccentric bounded into City Bakery on West 18th Street on a recent Thursday morning, wearing a fire-truck-red Scottish kilt and a navy-blue wool sweater, his broad, leonine cheekbones streaked with charcoal-hued face paint, he looked more Braveheart than businessman.

That's the way it is when you're defending the family name.

Throughout its 139 years-the firm recently celebrated its anniversary with a party at Fizz, the private members-only club on Madison Avenue recently opened by La Goulue owner John Denoyer-the William B. May name had been paired with the limestone mansions of such families as the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Fricks. Earlier even, its ancient lineage could be traced back to 17th-century England and the management of the crown's royal property. In more recent times, William B. May assembled land deals for I.B.M.'s Manhattan headquarters.

But on March 30, Mr. May's attorneys filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in lower Manhattan against Sherman Advertising Associates, a Manhattan-based real-estate advertising agency. The suit is the most recent kink in a bizarre tangle of internecine battles and corporate infighting: No fewer than 10 lawsuits have been filed in both state and federal courts by the dueling parties in the last year. Now those battles threaten to push the 139-year-old company from its perch among Manhattan's most exclusive brokerages.

"William B. May has a wonderful reputation. The firm has always had an impeccable reputation; they're one of the last family-run ones left," said Laurance Kaiser, the president of Key-Ventures Realty, an Upper East Side brokerage focusing on luxury properties and, like the Mays' company, one of the last remaining independents left in Manhattan.

Mr. May had donned the Scottish regalia that morning for a photo shoot at the Ken Browar studio on West 17th Street, a boutique shop known for such fashion clients as Roberto Cavalli and Prada, after shooting spots for a marketing campaign he said will revive his flailing company.

As some customers craned their heads to steal a look at Mr. May's getup, he plunked down at an upstairs table to describe his fight to win back the family company he says was snatched out of the hands of his elderly parents. He spoke in a husky bellow deepened by a two-pack-a-day Marlboro habit. Between sips from a double espresso, he nervously monitored e-mails on his Treo cell phone and raked his hands through his brown mane, already spotted with silver flecks.

"I don't mind a good fight," Mr. May said the next day, recalling a barroom brawl he once got into in his early 20's at an Irish pub on Third Avenue.

"My birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, and one St. Patrick's Day I got all tarted up in my kilts and the whole highland dress. I went into an Irish saloon. I was sober as a judge, and started singing "God Save the Queen" and fought my way out. There were eight guys. I left five of them bloody."

It all started in April of 2004, after Mr. May's brother-in-law, Peter Marra, left the family shop for rival brokerage Brown Harris Stevens, selling his own 12 percent stake in William B. May to Brown Harris' owners, the Zeckendorfs.

After some heavy legal wrangling between Mr. May, his sister's husband and the powerful Zeckendorf clan, all sides laid down arms in June in a deal that had the Zeckendorfs acquiring the Mays' two Brooklyn branches.

But since then, relations with the Zeckendorfs-if not with his brother-in-law-have been repaired.

"I think Billy is a very straight shooter and is an upfront business man," said William Lie Zeckendorf, co-chairman of Terra Holdings. Mr. Zeckendorf said he is considering real-estate deals with Mr. May.

Mr. May said he also patched relations with his brother-in-law and his sister Leslie, which had been left smoldering since June.

"I'm embarrassed about some of the things I said [about Peter and Leslie]," Mr. May said.

Mr. Marra, though, sees things differently.

"I'm happy at Brown Harris," Mr. Marra said by phone when reached for comment. "I really want to put this whole thing behind me, I want nothing to do with Bill May. I have nothing to say about Bill May or the May family."

About two months after the Marra defection, the firm sold its Madison Avenue branch for $375,000 to William B. May C.E.O. Christian Deutsch and his partner Kevin Brown, a Century 21 franchisee. The duo, now Mr. May's rivals, kept both names: A recent spate of real-estate ads in The New York Times, which are part of Mr. May's most recent lawsuit, carried the slogan "Century 21 William B. May." On Nov. 7, Century 21 William B. May ran an ad in The Times with a letter from Century 21 president and C.E.O. Thomas Kunz welcoming the company into its fold.

"It's my great-grandfather's name. It belongs to us," Mr. May said over lunch of lobster and kir in the cavernous dining hall of the Union League Club on April 1. "It's not a question of getting [the name] back, it's a matter of stopping other people from infringing on it. We still have all rights and title to it … and that license doesn't allow anyone to call themselves 'Century 21 William B. May' all in one breath. It says what we intended: You can be 'William B. May Company,' and with our express permission, you can make variations."

On April 8, the feud over the May family name steered toward détente when the May family's attorney, Mark Lebow of Sokolow, Carreras and Associates, distributed settlement documents to all parties involved. Settlement terms were not disclosed, and by press time not all parties had signed the accord. A signed settlement would cease all litigation.

In an e-mail, Paul Aloe, Mr. Brown's attorney, said: "As these matters are currently in litigation, our response to all of the allegations are in papers that are on file with the court. It is neither appropriate nor productive at this time for the parties to adjudicate these matters in the press. We are extremely confident in the correctness and merit of our position and in a favorable outcome."

Mr. May faces an uphill fight. High-grossing brokers such as Roger Erickson have decamped for rival agencies since the legal machinations began last July, and without their Madison Avenue flagship and the lucrative Brooklyn business that Brown Harris Stevens snapped up, the firm's major revenue streams have been choked off. Or, as David Burris, the co-chairman of Terra Holdings, the parent company of Brown Harris Stevens, said: "What's left of William B. May? William B. May will be whatever Bill May makes it. They managed to break up the firm. It basically needs to be built up from ground zero."

"I don't really want their money. I just want them to get the fuck off my island. It's my island," Mr. May said on a recent Friday evening. Such boasting could be brushed aside as brazen posturing, but for Mr. May, tact and nuance rarely inflect his oratory. He was gathered with several brokers from his firm's Beekman office at the Brazilian restaurant Circus on East 61st Street, where he dines several times a week. Mr. May, who goes by "Billy," wore a black leather jacket, trousers held up by suspenders and worn loafers. Perched at the bar, Mr. May clutched a glass of Portuguese red wine in one hand and a deep mug of espresso in the other. He took vigorous sips off both drinks in quick succession.

Mr. May eschews the management tactics championed by the corporate sages at Harvard Business School and instead mines the annals of military history for his business strategy.

"I feel like J.E.B. Stewart at the high-water mark of the confederacy, when J.E.B. Stewart took his cavalry and circled all the way around the Union Army," Mr. May said.

In business negotiations, he has been known to blast off fiery e-mails known as "Billygrams."

He lives in an East Side apartment just north of the U.N. headquarters with views overlooking the East River. In 1992, Mr. May said he reset his body clock to Greenwich Mean Time, which allows him to be more productive.

"I need four hours of sleep a night," he said. On a recent night, he recalled that he slept from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m., and then met brokers from his firm who were out dancing at Crobar. He stayed at the Chelsea club until 8 in the morning.

"Everyone was drunk, it was hilarious. I just had two Red Bulls and danced," he said.

Five days a week, Mr. May rises at dawn to lift weights with his personal trainer Ahmed, who he said once served in the Egyptian Special Forces.

"I do endurance stuff, mainly. I'm trying to get rid of the fuel tank to my love machine," he said, tapping the bulbous paunch that peeked just over his waistline.

When he's not at Circus, he prefers to dine at La Goulue or Russian Samovar with his fiancée, Inna Galerkina, a 29-year-old Russian-born hedge-fund manager with sharp blond hair, who on a recent evening wore a Chanel blazer and Bulgari pearls. The two met last year when Mr. May gave her real-estate advice at the request of a friend.

"It's time," he said. "I've been wolfing around this city for a long time. I proposed a while ago, and I gave her a token ring that she doesn't like. So I'm getting her a bling. It's a diamond sapphire ruby. The Russian colors. I thought it was kind of appropriate. It's a little East-bloc rock, but it's bling."

He said the ring cost "a mortgage."

Mr. May grew up in Ardsley-on-Hudson, 20 miles north of Manhattan. The family also spent time at a beach house on Fishers Island. He attended the prestigious St. George's School in Newport, R.I., and worked for his family's real-estate business.

"I worked in the company's property-management department out of 3 West 57th Street. It was funny because then, Donald Trump had just gotten started. And we were at 3 West 57th Street on the third floor, and he was across the street in the Crown Building on the third floor, and I used to watch him pacing in his office like a manic crazy person in those goddamn red suits he used to wear in the 1970's. It was ridiculous."

He also found time for carousing around the city.

"In 1976, I was dating a selling agent in the Liberty Tower building," Mr. May said. "She was great, she was hot. She was six or eight years older than I was. It was like a match made in heaven. She knew all the doormen at all the stupid clubs that were going on. But we always ended up at Studio [54]. I loved Studio," he said.

After high school, Mr. May studied economics at Duke University, where he dropped out after two and half years for what he said was his refusal to take a course he believed was "too politically correct." According to university records, Mr. May voluntarily withdrew in October 1982.

At Duke, Mr. May was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, played rugby and co-founded the school's polo club with 40 ponies he said his cousin won in a craps game in South America. Mr. May said he made his first foray into real estate at 17 when he bought a house in Durham, N.C., for $23,000 with "grass-cutting money and a loan from the bank." He sold it three years later for $160,000, he said.

"I had to get a note from home," he said. "I rented it to frat brothers, and they trashed it. That was fine; I kept repairing it. They paid a huge rent. My mortgage was $236 a month, and each bedroom was rented for $200 a month to fraternity brothers with their parents guaranteeing the rent, so who cares? It paid for my Duke education, by the way."

After Mr. May left Duke, he returned to New York in the early 1980's and worked in William B. May's brokerage business while managing some of his own buildings. To hear him tell it, his earthiness has been a boon to him at work. Mr. May said a disgruntled tenant in Washington Heights stabbed him in the abdomen when he showed up to collect rent one morning.

"Most of the tenants uptown were sleepy in the morning, so you kind of had the drop on them. This one opened the door, saw who I was, and went, ' Shhheet,'" he said, pointing to the spot where the knife punctured his stomach. Mr. May said he stitched up the wound himself.

Another time, Mr. May said, he walked into a drug deal gone bad during a building inspection in Harlem and took a bullet ricochet to the chest.

"The bullet went in sideways into the breast plate," he said thumping his chest. "I went to my doctor's house in Westchester. I jumped in a cab and went there."

In 1987, Mr. May abruptly quit the family business after a disagreement erupted over a deal to buy 10 townhouses on the West Side.

Mr. May landed in New Orleans and managed property for Brignac-Derbes, a Louisiana real-estate firm. While he was there, Mr. May said he worked as a volunteer cop, patrolling housing projects at night. A few years later, Mr. May returned to New York and said he developed some eight buildings in Brooklyn over the course of 18 months. Throughout the 1990's, he bounced around, wheeling and dealing. In East Texas, he said he bailed out the Indo-American Refining company; back in New York, he advised a bankrupt bicycle company that he declined to name. More recently, he said he has been developing loft buildings in the Wilmington, Del., area.

Mr. May said Sept. 11 changed his life. As he tells it, he took off from Delaware in his private plane en route to Newport, R.I. When the first airliner struck the north tower, Mr. May said he was some 10,000 feet above New York Harbor and witnessed the entire disaster unfold.

"I was on the radio to McGuire Air Force base in 20 seconds saying there had been a terrorist attack," Mr. May recalled on a recent afternoon walking across Lexington Avenue. "And I tried to get vectors to run chicken on the second airliner, because I figured, two buildings, two airliners-like that!"

Mr. May said he kept his plane aloft following the attack, rather than heed the grounding order issued by the F.A.A. In the ensuing months, he said he wrote a scathing 400-page report critical of airport security, and became the target of the F.B.I. He said at the time he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I relive that day most nights each week in my dreams. I still wake up sweating," he wrote in an e-mail message.

In a bizarre twist of events, he turned himself in to authorities in Delaware in December 2001. According to reports in the Associated Press and the Philadelphia Inquirer, the F.B.I. and police arrested Mr. May for allegedly leaving six fake bombs at the New Castle County Airport. According to a report in the News Journal, Mr. May planted phony explosives at the airport that included an empty can with a clock and a note left under an aircraft, a pocket watch taped to a shotgun shell stashed under a staircase, and an ornament placed on a closet light switch.

Mr. May said the ground crew had fueled his plane with the wrong fuel, which severely damaged his aircraft. In response, he became angry and planted the faux bombs to prove how lax airport security was. He described his actions at the time as "strange."

"I was trying to make a point and did it the wrong way," he said.

Between trial and sentencing, he served 31 days in solitary confinement and said he read Moby-Dick seven times.

Mr. May received a felony conviction and four years probation for the incident. He is barred from flying during his probation and banned from airports without approval from his probation officer. Mr. May's attorney at the time, Penelope Marshall, said in reports that Mr. May was not medicated for his bipolar disorder. In federal affidavits, Mr. May's sister, Leslie May Marra, said her brother was treated for bipolar disorder in 1984 and suffered from manic depression, and in the months before the incident Mr. May had tried to commit suicide.

He's "not a kook," Jeanne May, his mother, told reporters at the time. Today Mr. May denies his sister's account.

"When you're in jail, you have no voice," he said.

Over dinner at Circus, Mr. May ordered a salad tropical and spoke about his two principal adversaries, Mr. Deutsch and Mr. Brown of Century 21, the real-estate franchise network controlled by the $21 billion Cendant holding company that has gobbled up real-estate brands including the Corcoran Group, Sotheby's International Realty and Coldwell Banker, with more than 280,000 brokers worldwide.

Just how Mr. May's relations with Mr. Deutsch, William B. May's former C.E.O., and his partner Mr. Brown devolved remains a mystery spiked with bitter acrimony and personal attacks. Both sides, in dueling lawsuits and court documents, offer vastly differing accounts of the financial transaction that had Messrs. Deutsch and Brown purchasing the assets of the May family's office at 575 Madison Avenue to operate it under the Century 21 moniker. Mr. May alleges that Mr. Deutsch-who joined the family's firm in 1993-misrepresented his stake in the new Century 21 venture; that he altered financial statements to misstate the family's financial health by seven figures to pressure the Mays into selling and exact a more favorable deal for himself; and extracted funds from the company without approval. Mr. May's father, Bruce May, said in one instance he was pressured to sign a deal on the hood of his car outside a restaurant in Maryland at night. Mr. May is also suing Mr. Deutsch, his wife Alexandra and William B. May's former comptroller Linda Bower, seeking $15 million in damages and $25 million in punitive damages.

In October, Brown Harris Stevens Brooklyn, the brokerage controlled by the powerful Zeckendorf family, filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court alleging that Mr. Deutsch refused to release commission checks totaling some $650,000 from the Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights offices of William B. May that the Zeckendorfs had purchased following Mr. Marra's decampment, along with another $177,000 that disappeared from company coffers. Mr. May said he has spent some $40,000 on a private investigator to prove his case, as well as $40,000 more on forensic accounting to verify his firm's finances.

In response, Mr. Deutsch said in court documents that the May family was clearly aware the entire time of the deal's structure and his and Mr. Brown's plan to operate the 575 Madison Avenue office as a Century 21 franchise with the name William B. May attached. In no way were they in violation of the license, Mr. Deutsch said.

Mr. Brown summed up his view of the Mays' actions in a court statement: "They are in effect asking the court to unscramble an egg that they themselves scrambled."

Mr. Brown declined to comment on the record about the case.

In another court statement, Mr. Brown said that on July 26, Mr. May and his father, accompanied by several people, entered the 575 Madison Avenue office proclaiming it their own, and refused to leave. The police were summoned to the premises and the Mays eventually left. Mr. Brown also said that Mr. May had boasted to him that he had "planted" a previously reported article in The Observer last June.

Mr. May denied having boasted about his statements to The Observer, and said he wanted to sit for an interview after he saw an article in the New York Post that first broke Mr. Marra's jump to Brown Harris Stevens.

"I will just litigate forever, and keep them so mired in muck for doing what they did, they won't be able to do any business, they'll be so busy dealing with me," Mr. May said.

As he seeks to unwind the web of legal entanglements that has ensnared his company over the past year, Mr. May continues to operate three New York offices with branches in Beekman, Tribeca and Greenwich Village, and a fourth branch in Westchester in Irvington, N.Y. He said he's pursuing expansions into New Jersey and London. As a privately held company, financial records are not available, but Mr. May said business is reviving-and the company profitable. In the next 12 months, he expects to turn $15 million in commissions. He is renovating a new headquarters on the fifth floor at 135 East 55th Street, and plans to open the space in May.

Whether that's enough to get his family business back on its feet remains to be seen. Mr. May, who says he has already spent $1 million of his own money to stanch the attacks on his family's business, said he will not surrender until his family wins its name back.

"I'm like a one-man pack of wild dogs when I get angry," he said.

The next day found her son, William May, a director and fourth-generation member of the 138-year-old family brokerage, sitting with William Lie Zeckendorf, co-chairman of Terra Holdings, at the Chestertown Yacht Club on the Chesapeake Bay. They were there to broker a settlement deal to put his family's company back together after Mr. May's brother-in-law, Mr. Marra, left the firm in April to join rival Brown Harris Stevens, owned by the Zeckendorfs. His exit brought the two companies close to dueling lawsuits.

Now, the May and Zeckendorf families say they reached a preliminary settlement on June 21. But the family battle continues. The past seven weeks have laid bare a raw and often vicious struggle for the future of the Upper East Side's real-estate éminence grise . Mr. Marra and the May family, whose longstanding independent company has sold some of Manhattan's finest homes along the limestone corridors on the Upper East Side to pedigreed families including the Carnegies, Fricks and Vanderbilts, stood recently on the brink of an extinction of sorts. A single, if significant, defection might have pulled the company up even from its ancient roots, dating back to 17th-century England, when the family sold prized London properties to the Crown estate.

Mr. Marra, the former president of William B. May who is married to Mr. May's sister, Leslie May Marra, ignited the feud between the two family-run real-estate empires when he sold his 12 percent stake in the May's company to Terra Holdings and brought 22 agents with him to his new employer. Under the terms of the deal, Mr. Marra was named an executive vice president at Brown Harris Stevens and now runs the firm's new office at 1121 Madison Avenue.

According to the May family and Mr. Marra, all communication between the two parties has been severed. The Mays say they have cut Mr. Marra and his wife out of their inheritance from the family business, with skipping trusts set up for their two children.

It has been a cautionary tale in the high-stakes, and ultra-competitive, game of the Manhattan real-estate market, which in the past three years has been reshaped by a furious spate of corporate consolidations. The few remaining independent brokerages, without the deep balance sheets of the vast holding companies that now finance Manhattan's largest brokerages, including the Corcoran Group and Douglas Elliman, have been nervously watching while larger firms circle the sharky waters of the real-estate market looking to expand their ever-growing empires. Industry experts say it was this competitive climate that has pushed independent firms into the arms of flush investors and caused the May family business to spin out of control.

But the parties in the May family feud paint vastly different pictures of just how the company unraveled.

It was on April 29, when an article first appeared in the New York Post , that Mr. May, 43, said he first learned the news that his brother-in-law had sold his shares, totaling approximately 12 percent of the company, to Terra Holdings, New York's largest real-estate concern, which owns both Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property L.L.C., with more than $3.1 billion in closed sales posted in 2002.

"He should have called my father first, rather than let my father learn about this in the bloody newspapers. There was not a peep. That's the biggest surprise of all," said Mr. May, a real-estate developer based in Wilmington, Del., who is building the state's tallest tower, speaking to The Observer . "No one bothered to call-they just went ahead and did this."

The rift in the family launched a battle for control in the privately held company that has been selling New York real-estate since 1866, and which Mr. May says is profitable, debt-free and posted, in 2003, $25 million in commissions. On April 29, when news of Mr. Marra's decampment broke, the May family was within hours of finalizing an 18-month-long restructuring deal with the Century 21 division of Cendant-the world's largest real-estate brokerage franchiser, with more than 13,000 offices and 265,000 sales associates nationwide-that would have expanded the company's reach into new markets on the East Coast and secured its position in New York. Mr. May said the family had offered Mr. Marra a premium for his shares in the proposed deal, which were valued at approximately $2.5 million, according to sources familiar with the proceedings, and he would have been duly compensated under any investment from Century 21. Mr. May also said Mr. Marra's decamping to Brown Harris Stevens violated two shareholder agreements he'd signed back in 1985.

"Peter breached his fiduciary duties to our company. He doesn't understand corporate law: By going there as an officer of Brown Harris Stevens, he is acting against the interest of the [William B. May] corporation," Mr. May said. "We're trying to work this out without destroying Peter Marra. If we destroy him, he won't be able to support my sister."

Mr. May said that following his brother-in-law's departure, Mr. Marra attempted to recruit additional William B. May brokers to join him at rival Brown Harris Stevens.

Mr. Marra offers a very different portrait of what drove him to abandon the family business for a rival. He said he made no efforts to bring William B. May brokers with him.

"I learned the May family was selling their shares to Century 21, and I couldn't go along with what they proposed," said Mr. Marra, who first joined William B. May in 1983. "I felt like I was in a precarious position, being a minority shareholder. My family had sold the company without telling me, and I was in a no-win position. My shares were devalued; my future in this business seemed bleak at Century 21. So I decided to look at my other options, and I spoke to Terra Holdings, and they were extraordinarily receptive, professional and welcoming. I saw my future at Brown Harris Stevens was bright, and I had to look out for my own family."

The two parties also disagree over the timing of the deal. Mr. May said he has evidence that Mr. Marra had been in talks with the Zeckendorf family at Terra Holdings months before the announcement in April of his departure, while Mr. Marra said he initiated the deal in four days in April after he learned the Mays had agreed to partner with Century 21. The May family has enlisted the legal council of attorney David Scharf of Morrison, Cohen, Singer & Weinstein to block any further attempt by Terra Holdings to acquire William B. May's operations, which encompass more than 200 brokers spread across seven New York offices. Roberta Benzilio, an executive at the company, has been appointed interim president.

"We have made an equity investment in the William B. May company, and we have a good working relationship with the May family. We have come to an agreement to separate our interests into stand-alone investments," Terra Holdings' co-chairman David Burris said in a statement.

"It took seven weeks of sorting through this flesh, metal and glass of the car wreck Peter created," said Mr. May. "But we don't hold particular animosity to the Zeckendorfs. They've done something that wasn't elegant, and they're trying to make amends. We'll try and work this out."

Still, while the two companies have brokered a rapprochement , the steely truce between William B. May and Terra Holdings shows the increasing pressure that independent brokerage firms now feel in Manhattan's luxury real-estate market, once the domain of society brokers who traded listings over wine at Madison Avenue boîtes, which has now been pried open to the harsh competitiveness and efficiency promoted by national brands.

"I just think the middle market is a tough place to be. We get approached all the time. It's very hard when you're a mid-sized firm to attract talent. You've got to grow internally. I can speak from experience-it's a really hard thing to do," said Jed Garfield, of the boutique townhouse specialist Leslie J. Garfield.

"Part of what happened at William B. May can be seen as freeing someone from a family business," said Paul Purcell, the former president of Douglas Elliman who is now the chief executive of Braddock and Purcell, a New York real-estate consulting firm. "The opportunity is selling these firms and doing something bigger. Can you do something in a market and get traction in a firm their size?"

Other members of the industry saw the upheaval at William B. May resulting from the internal struggle among members of the May family.

"This is a consolidation that didn't work out. When we bought Douglas Elliman, we didn't lose anyone. The partners in William B. May weren't necessarily on the same page. When you buy a company, it's very important to look at the culture and the relations among the partners," said Dottie Herman, the chief executive of Douglas Elliman.

"My opinion is, basically, Terra had the opportunity to take advantage of an internal conflict between Peter [Marra] and the owners of William B. May," said Frederick Peters, the president of Warburg Realty Partnership, a mid-sized company with 85 brokers.

For the remaining family-run real-estate firms, including old-line boutiques such as Alice F. Mason and Edward L. Cave, the consolidation pressures that perhaps led to the conflagration within the May company show no signs of abating.

In businesses such as real estate, where a family's hopes and dreams rise on the trade of opulent mansions, battles over money, power and control strike a deep chord.

"My family is important to me; what is unfortunate is that it didn't have to end up this way. Communication was very lacking," Mr. Marra said. "I went to [Terra] after I felt there was no future for me at William B. May. It was a very sad day in my life."

And as Mr. May moves the family business forward following the rupture with his sister and brother-in-law, preparing to open two new offices this year, he sees a future where his family's nearly two-decades-old company can operate in a successful niche during an era when corporate largesse continues to transform the New York real-estate market.

"You can be independent, debt-free and smaller, and watch the big companies beat the hell out of each other. And that's what we're going to do," he said. "This unfortunate event was only a punch in the nose and not a shot to the forehead. It was a bruise, but it wasn't mortal. For a firm that's been in business for 140 years, this will be a footnote to a footnote."

The 3,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom spread carried a $5.695 million price tag and was listed with Annette Elvey, a broker with Fox Residential Group. The deal closed in December 2003.

Ms. Elvey declined to comment on the buyer's identity, but she did say that the apartment closed at close to the asking price. Powerhouse Corcoran broker Deborah Grubman represented the buyer, and also declined to comment on the deal and the buyer's identity.

The apartment first hit the market in March 2002 at $6.1 million and sat without a buyer. The sellers lowered the price to $5.85 million in August 2002, and finally to $5.695 million in October 2003, before Mr. Moonves snatched up the place in December.

The combined apartment includes a surfeit of luxurious details, including an eat-in kitchen, four exposures, a grand reception room, an oval marble foyer, a gallery and a corner living room with a wood-burning fireplace.

According to Ms. Elvey, the apartment was finished with a classical style.

"It was very luxuriously appointed," she said. "You could do a lot of entertaining there. And it had a very beautiful master bathroom."

Through a spokesperson, Mr. Moonves declined to comment about his recent Park Avenue acquisition.

The 14-story building was designed by the renowned architect Herbert Lucas in 1911. For Mr. Moonves, the Upper East Side location close to midtown was also a strong selling point on the spread.

"The apartment still has the 10021 ZIP code," Ms. Elvey said, speaking about what attracted the buyer to the place. "The block is still very residential, but being on 61st Street, it's very convenient for commuting."

A pair of apartments at the exclusive 4 East 66th Street co-op-the prestigious limestone building that was formerly home to the British consul general, Sir Thomas Harris-has flip-flopped on and off the market this spring. Now, the fourth-floor apartment is listing for $16 million after going to contract earlier this winter, and up on the seventh floor, the lavish spread owned by film producer Leonard Goldberg has found a buyer to the tune of its $25 million asking price.

The fourth-floor apartment, listed by the estate of maverick horse owner Kay Jeffords, is now back on the market for $16 million after going to contract in mid-February for around $12.5 million (it carried a $14 million price tag then). Sources close to the property said that the board delayed making its decision, and the buyers got restless and decided to pull out of the deal.

"The board was slow in meeting, and the people didn't want to wait any longer, so [the board] let them get their deposit back," the source said. "It might be a way of the board saying they didn't want to approve the deal."

Cornelia Zagat Eland, of Stribling and Associates, didn't return calls for comment about her exclusive listing.

The six-bedroom apartment is one of the most luxurious properties along Fifth Avenue, with fine details including a 36-foot drawing room, a wood-paneled library, a formal dining room, a reception room, two elevators and five wood-burning fireplaces. The apartment had been the former home of the renowned diplomat and financier Bernard Baruch, and in recent years had served as the residence of Ms. Jeffords-owner of the star-chaser Lonesome Glory-who passed away at 80 last July. Ms. Jeffords' extensive collection of horse memorabilia adorns much of the apartment's walls.

Though the Jeffords spread is back on the market, buyers remain eager to move into the tony Upper East Side building that over the years has been home to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Sid and Mercedes Bass, Ace Greenberg and Veronica Hearst. The seventh-floor apartment, owned by Mr. Goldberg (whose producing credits include Charlie's Angels and Sleeping with the Enemy ) and his wife Wendy, has been quietly shopped around for years by the couple, but recently they officially listed the spread with Mara Gardner of Brown Harris Stevens. On May 12, the floor-through apartment-which has four bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, five wood-burning fireplaces, a formal dining room and a master suite with his-and-her bathrooms and dressing rooms-went to contract near the $25 million price tag, real-estate sources close to the building said. But the buyers aren't in the clear yet, as they still have to pass the board's discerning eye.

Ms. Gardner didn't return calls for comment.

Recent Transactions In The Real Estate Market

Upper East Side

40 East 83rd Street

Three-bedroom, three-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $2.7 million. Selling: $3.3 million.

Maintenance: $3,176; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one week.

RETURN OF THE BIDDING WAR With children scampering off to college, the soon-to-be empty-nesters who owned this opulent 2,500-square-foot Upper East Side spread decided it was time to downsize. The finance executive and his wife had lived in this eight-room apartment, on the corner of Madison Avenue and 83rd Street, for the past 10 years before they landed in a more compact apartment in the neighborhood. "It had an excellent floor plan that allows flexibility in the layout," said exclusive broker Catherine Spencer from Douglas Elliman, speaking of their former 83rd Street digs. The apartment had a library that was configured as a master suite, a windowed eat-in kitchen, beamed ceilings and herringbone floors. Apparently, other precocious buyers vied for the place as well. According to Ms. Spencer, the sellers received 21 sealed bids. "It's an indication of how strong this market really is," she said. The winners-who paid some $600,000 above the asking price-were a real-estate developer and his wife who wanted to trade up as their growing clan needed more space.

228 East 71st Street

Four-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse.

Asking: $3.95 million. Selling: $3.7 million.

Time on the market: eight months.

MOVING THE X-FILES For years, this early-20th-century townhouse between Second and Third avenues housed one of Manhattan's more quixotic nonprofit groups: the Parapsychology Foundation. According to their Web site, the group promotes the investigation of "psychic phenomena" and, in addition, maintains a vast library of parapsychology texts, with more than 10,000 volumes in its collection. It appears that the group did some fortune-telling of its own with the sale of this 5,120-square-foot townhouse that had served as the organization's offices. The residence also had two floor-through apartments on the upper levels, a finished English basement and a private rear garden. Recently another nonprofit, the World Youth Alliance, snapped up the place to use as its New York headquarters. The group is affiliated with the U.N.; it hosts students from abroad and schedules internships for them in the city. The World Youth Alliance now plans an extensive renovation to the spread, which, when complete, will include a basement exercise room, reception and entertaining space on the parlor floor, an office on the second floor and residential space on third and fourth floors, where the children will stay during their New York sojourns.

"This building was ideal, and it was a great location for them," Toni Simon, an associate broker at William B. May, said of the property on East 71st Street. Ms. Simon shared the listing with fellow William B. May senior vice president Suzanne Sealy. John Oler, of JSBO Realty and Capital Inc., represented the buyers.

DavidGilmartin,thetownattorneyfor Southampton, which has jurisdiction in East Quogue, said that a group of 10 or 11 share houses along Jeffrey Place and Laura Court "are wreaking havoc in the neighborhood," and that the Town Board has authorized him to "commence enforcement action" against them.

"We're bringing a lawsuit against the owners and the people in the house to force them to come into compliance with the town code," Mr. Gilmartin told The Observer .

Town codes prevent the operation of share houses in the quiet hamlet on the western end of that trendy stretch of Long Island's south shore loosely known as "the Hamptons." But that didn't prevent Josh Sagman, a proprietor of one of the houses, from putting himself and his place at Jeffrey Lane front-and-center in Ms. Kopple's documentary.

According to lawyers for Mr. Sagman's neighbors, the house at 6 Jeffrey Lane is owned by a corporate entity called JBJ Enterprises. The three principals in the company-Josh Sagman, Brandon Estrin and Jason Kovar-are also the principals in another business venture called Perfect Oxygen, purveyors of shots of scented pure oxygen for consumption at bars and clubs.

Calls to Perfect Oxygen to reach Mr. Sagman were not immediately returned. Gary Henkus, who was listed as a contact for 6 Jeffrey Lane on the Web site, summershares.com, declined to comment on the status of the share house.

Last summer, Messrs. Sagman, Estrin and Kovar rented shares in the house and advertised a vigorous social schedule stretching from the May 27 "Color War" ice-breaker ("Included will be sports, drinking events, and maybe even a little nudity … hahaha-Hosted by Josh Sagman," the Web announcement reads) to the Labor Day "Jamaican Me Crazy" reggae party.

Rarely enforced town codes did not seem to put a damper on things, from the looks of Ms. Kopple's documentary.

"People always get taken to court for the parking, or if they're throwing a party late-night," said David Shapiro, a longtime Southampton resident. "They don't actually take people to court for overoccupancy. You have to really piss them off to get them to do that."

Consider it done. But just being pissed off won't be enough to enable the town to morph into a gentle gerontocracy. Part of the problem, according to Quogue mayor Thelma Georgeson, is that it's difficult to prove that something is a share house.

"We allow six unrelated persons to rent a house," Ms. Georgeson explained. So proving that there are more people renting than that can be difficult. "Every Memorial Day weekend, we do our patrol to see which houses are share houses," Ms. Georgeson explained. "You pretty soon know which ones they are. But the burden of proof is on us that this is a share house, and that's difficult to do."

That won't stop neighbors and town officials from trying.

Watching the matter closely are Mr. Sagman's Quogue neighbors, who have retained Southampton attorney Lisa Kombrink to represent them.

According to Ms. Kombrink, as of May 28 shares were still being offered in the Jeffrey Lane house for this summer through a Web site, 6jeffreylane.com. On that site, the ad explained that the house was being sponsored for the summer by Tanqueray and Moët & Chandon.

But that Web site has since been taken down, and according to Patti Schickram, a spokeswoman for both spirit manufacturers, the sponsorship was a hoax to begin with.

"Don't believe the hype," she said. "We were not in any way a sponsor of those houses. We had nothing to do with it."

Local brokers are even starting to think twice about facilitating share houses for rent or purchase. Frank Austria, an associate broker at JBG Realty in East Quogue, said they cause brokers too much of a headache to be worthwhile.

"Summer is a nuisance, really," he said. "With a sale, you do it once, you're done. With rentals, there's always someone complaining. There's always somebody getting drunk and making it miserable for everybody else."

If that sounds good to you, however, there are still shares in the house available on summersharehouse.com, which describes a nine-bedroom manse with six and a half bathrooms, a pool, a tennis court, a basketball court, a volleyball court, a pool table-and that famous 12-person Jacuzzi you saw in the documentary.

Your name on the town's suit is complimentary.

Still licking his wounds after his stunning K.O. at the hands of fellow heavyweight Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson has retreated to his corner-and he's unlikely to find another roost soon.

Not long after The Observer reported that Mr. Tyson put in a bid on a $10.75 million canary-yellow townhouse on East 64th Street, figuring that if he emerged victorious in Memphis, the payday would cover both his myriad debts as well as his proffer for a little piece of the Upper East Side, other reports began to emerge. Mr. Tyson was said to be eyeing a spread in Denmark and, more recently, Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan's Cedar Springs estate in Byron Bay, Australia. Even that place, with its relatively modest price tag, however-for $4.5 million, you get a mansion on 325 acres of beachfront land, where Iron Mike could indulge his storied love of zoo animals with the freely roaming wallabies and black cockatoos-appears out of reach for Mr. Tyson, as press reports have indicated that the owner of that place also thought the purchase was dependent on Mr. Tyson knocking out Mr. Lewis.

As for the Upper East Side townhouse, Mr. Tyson's interest there seems to have evaporated faster than you can say "no rematch."

"I haven't heard from him," said Austrian developer Peter Cervinka, who received a bid from Mr. Tyson on the East 64th Street house last month. "But I guess since he lost, it's my assumption that we won't hear from him again."

At the end of two three-day shoppingsprees in Paris,NewYork investment banker Robert Novogratz and his wife Cortneyhadenough bootytofillsix storageunitsin Chel-sea. Their take included a huge 300-year-oldcircular windowfroma crumbling French cathedral; an enormous analog clock from a Parisian train station; and an antique set of stained-glass double doors.

The idea was to decorate their new Soho townhouse at 24 Thompson Street in a style as eclectic and funky as the neighborhood-a neighborhood in which there are only a handful of townhouses to begin with.

Thirty-five subcontractors later and their mission accomplished, Mr. Novogratz and his wife have put the place on the market for $8.9 million. They're hoping to repeat the process as soon as possible.

"It's both a business and it's become our passion," said Mr. Novogratz, who, in a partnership with his wife and a professional draftsman, designed this townhouse from the ground up, starting in November 2000. It had always been their plan to sell it off as soon as they'd had their fun decorating it.

"It's a ton of fun to go to Paris with a nice-sized check and buy what you want," Mr. Novogratz said.

That check was made possible by their past forays into real estate. Five years ago, they gut-renovated a place in Chelsea, and about two years ago they did the same to 22 Thompson Street, the house right next-door to this one. And as they renovate more and more places-the rent on the first two townhouses is enough to cover the mortgages on them "three times over"-their budget for new construction gets higher and higher.

"We just got a bigger budget and got more creative and funkier as we went," said Mr. Novogratz.

Now they're ready to sell this place-and parlay the profits into an even more ambitious project.

It all began as a hobby for the Novogratzes, but quickly turned into a 30-hour-a-week undertaking. During his lunch break, Mr. Novogratz would jog from Wall Street to Thompson Street to direct construction. On the weekends, he and his wife would scour the city for hidden or overlooked treasures. All this while the two were looking after their four children-including one set of twins.

The five-story townhouse-on Thompson Street right off Grand Street-has a gray cement façade, approximately 5,000 square feet of space indoors and a 1,000-square-foot roof terrace. None of the ceilings are lower than 15 feet, and the walls have been done in warm shades of yellow, salmon, pink and blue. The first floor feels the most cramped, as it shares space with a one-car garage and a small patio. But the second-floor kitchen and dining area sprawls luxuriously across an open-floor plan, an 18-foot-long bar accentuating the room's outsize length. Light pours in through that 300-year-old cathedral window on one side, and three arched window-doors span the width of the other. The Novogratzes salvaged upwards of 10,000 Minten tiles from a decaying old cancer hospital on West 94th Street and hired a mosaic specialist to re-plaster them on their kitchen floor.

The children's floor, two levels above, has a working pinball machine and an impressive phalanx of ceramic ball-players and action heroes with bouncing heads. There's more for the kids: The fifth floor has a children's playroom, nanny's quarters and laundry facilities, as well as another huge circular cathedral window. The terrace level has Moroccan-style light fixtures and offers 270-degree views of lower and upper Manhattan.

Does Mr. Novogratz feel any pang of regret now that he's selling the place that he and his wife worked so hard to perfect?

"You hate giving up a great place like this," he said. "But to be able to do that again is worth it."

Sara Gelbard, Meredith Hatfield and Joseph Dwyer of the Corcoran Group have the exclusive listing.

upper east side

51 East 78th Street

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $775,000. Selling: $785,000.

Maintenance: $895; 43 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: four weeks.

TROMPE L'OEIL TRADER This Wall Street trader spent his down time upgrading from armchair carpenter to woodworking craftsman, installing staircases, arched-barrel ceilings and hardwood floors-with his bare hands-in this turn-of-the-century first-floor duplex (with a patio garden) on 78th Street off Madison Avenue. "It wasn't an apartment," said Halstead senior vice president Louise Phillips, the exclusive agent on the deal, by way of complimenting the trader's handiwork. "You could tell it was somebody's home." Little grace notes weren't beyond his ken, either: To dress up the cabinet concealing a Murphy bed, he bought a load of vintage books at the Strand, sawed off the spine ends and glued them onto the wall to create a trompe l'oeil bookcase. When it came time for the seller to depart from the old clubhouse, finding the right person to appreciate his work turned out to be a matter of luck. The buyer, another Wall Street guy, hadn't even considered the East Side, but after he'd lost several bidding wars across the park, his fiancée (who saw an item about this apartment in The New York Times ) dragged him over to take a look. Her intended was surprised at what he saw there: It definitely wasn't the froufrou Mario Buatta feel he'd expected. "It was masculine," said Ms. Phillips of the dark, heavy woodwork. "But it was done with tender, loving care. You could soften it up easily." Which is why these two quickly placed a bid-and this time, won.

east village

14 East Fourth Street (the Silk Building)

One-bedroom, two-bathroom condo.

Asking: $899,000. Selling: $899,000.

Charges: $705. Taxes: $570.

Time on the market: four months.

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT When the buyers of this East Village apartment fled their old place near Ground Zero, they were forced to abandon most of their prized orchid collection, but were hoping to find a place that would allow them to start growing again. Anna Hetzel, a sales agent with William B. May, immediately thought of a 1,250-square-foot triplex condo at the Silk Building (where Britney Spears lives) whose top floor had a greenhouse. "It was really important for them to have this outdoor space," said Ms. Hetzel. The apartment has an odd configuration: The master bedroom is on the first floor, the living room and kitchen are on the second. A winding staircase from that floor leads to the garden level above. The buyers-they're in their late 20's; he's an investment banker, she's a freelance multimedia consultant-aren't feeling the apartment's prewar frills. So they plan to do away with the wood paneling and delicate moldings, and bring in a little bare, sheer, stainless-steel modernity. Edward Ferris of William B. May worked with Ms. Hetzel on the deal.

brooklyn heights

28 Old Fulton Street (the Eagle Warehouse)

Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op.

Asking: $619,000. Selling: $601,500.

Maintenance: $916; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two months.

HEARTHLESS Before a developer carved apartment units out of this Brooklyn Heights warehouse in 1980, the building served as a storage facility for The Brooklyn Eagle , which was published daily for 114 years, until 1955. Writing about the building for The New York Times in 1995, Christopher Gray said, "This medieval brick fortress recalls the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, with a massive entry arch, barred windows and a machicolated cornice." Apartments in the seven-story building have high ceilings, exposed wooden beams and gorgeous views of the river and the Manhattan skyline beyond-and electric stoves. The couple in their early 30's who bought the place "loved it so much, but when they saw it didn't have gas stoves, they almost didn't buy it," said Jim Rigney, a vice president with the Corcoran Group. Desperate to resolve their dilemma, the couple found an electric contraption that mimics the heating action of a gas stove. "If you can get to the moon, I guess you can get an electric stove that heats up similar to gas," said a puzzled Mr. Rigney.

Jessica Parker style-the actress has given scores of interviews about being on welfare as a child-the purchase was a bargain. In April 2000, at the height of the real estate market, the couple paid $2.995 million for a three-story, 20-foot-wide townhouse on one of the prettiest blocks of the West Village.

"They got a great deal," said one broker familiar with the sale. "She'd been looking for seven years. She knew what was good." The broker said the couple made an offer on the house about a week after it came on the market with broker Susan Sears of Bascom & Sears.

In an interview a few months after the purchase, Ms. Parker described herself as "inconsistently frugal! I guess I am frugal, but I never deprive myself of a good pair of shoes!" In the same interview, Ms. Parker said she and her husband would have to be in the same place at the same time in order to start a family. It seems they were in May when, a few weeks after Mr. Broderick debuted in Mel Brooks' The Producers on Broadway and Ms. Parker was about to debut in the third season of her HBO series, Sex and the City , the couple started renovations on their new home.

Through the winter, the house sat vacant while menus and circulars piled up at the front door and neighbors got nervous that the couple might neglect to shovel their portion of the sidewalk. According to reports, the couple is living in another Village townhouse, one that Mr. Broderick already owned when they met. But about a month ago, a construction crew arrived at the new place. "It was really in terrible shape," said one source. "It needs all new mechanics."

According to city records, the couple will spend $275,000 to redo the plumbing and wiring in the house. But they're just getting started. Sources say that Mr. Broderick and Ms. Parker bought the house primarily for its Old World details, and those will be preserved: The floor plan will be left intact, as will the moldings. Part of the renovation involves replacing a stoop in front of the house that had been torn down years ago. Architect Richard Sammons is listed on the work permit; Mr. Sammons is a partner in the New York architectural firm Fairfax & Sammons Architects, which specializes in traditional architecture. The renovation is expected to take another year.

Of course, like everything else Ms. Parker does, on- or off-screen, her stoop rebuilding has set off a trend. In the past few months, the local community board has approved another similar project on her street. A resident of the block said that several other residents are restoring their ironwork.

king of pop's house sells to king of debt

While brokers complain that there are more townhouses sitting on the market right now than at any other time in memory, 4 East 74th Street, the house that Michael Jackson lived in while recording his last album, was scooped up by Marc Lasry, a managing director of Amroc Investments Inc., on June 1 for about $15 million.

Mr. Lasry, 40, trades in distressed debt and, with his wife, Cathy Cohen, endowed a Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., their alma mater, in 1999. The center, called Lasry House, includes seminar rooms, offices, an exhibition room and a library of nearly 3,000 volumes.

Mr. Lasry said he signed a contract to buy the six-story townhouse-which Mr. Jackson rented for about six months in 1999 for $75,000 a month, and where Marc Chagall lived after arriving in New York in 1941-for under the asking price of $15 million, but would not give the exact figure. He said that he, his wife and their five children would be moving into their new home by September. On May 29, he put his current home, a 12-room apartment at 895 Park Avenue, on the market for $7.75 million with Amy Tucker of Sloan Square realty. (They bought the apartment in 1994 for about $2.5 million.)

Fortunately for the Lasrys, their new townhouse doesn't need any work. The 25-foot-wide, 12,000-square-foot house was built in 1898 for Steven L. Stetson, whose family was one of the more successful 19th-century American hat manufacturers. Last February, a couple bought the townhouse, located just east of Fifth Avenue, for $13.25 million and sank $1 million into sprucing up the property, renovating it for the second time in five years. It has an unusual oak staircase with railings that bow out in the hallways, stained glass windows, an elevator and 11 fireplaces. The kitchen has a six-burner restaurant stove, stainless steel Viking dishwashers and a table for eight that faces gardens behind Fifth Avenue. There's also a rooftop terrace where Mr. Jackson was often spotted playing with kids.

"At the point of the contract being signed, it was the best house on the market," said Jed Garfield of Leslie J. Garfield, of Mr. Lasry's deal. "It's a terrific house. It's big, it gets light on three sides."

In September, the house went on the market for $20 million-a price tag that was slashed to $15 million in January. Mr. Lasry's broker, Diana Tawgin of William B. May Real Estate, didn't return calls.

UPPER EAST SIDE

WHERE MEG MET DENNIS, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT When word started to spread that Meg Ryan was going to sell the 12th-floor Fifth Avenue apartment that she bought with her estranged husband Dennis Quaid for $3.1 million in 1997, brokerage owner Barbara Corcoran sent Ms. Ryan flowers with the note, "Meg, when can we show your apartment?" But to no avail. On May 30, Ms. Ryan's seven-room co-op near 94th Street went on the market for $7.2 million with Anne Curran of Sotheby's.

"That's a fair asking price," said a broker. "All the bedrooms face the park." And the 3,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, four-bath apartment with views of Central Park is in mint condition, brokers say.

The following week, Ms. Ryan-who wrapped filming on Kate & Leopold on May 25-checked out a townhouse on Barrow Street in the West Village with a $2.995 million price tag, as well as a $3.75 million loft on the seventh floor of 124 Hudson Street, a new condo development in Tribeca where model Carol Alt purchased an apartment last summer. Brokers said Ms. Ryan was shopping with broker Steve McRae of Sotheby's, who was unavailable for comment. Ms. Ryan's publicist, Annett Wolf of Wolf Kasteler Public Relations, didn't return calls.

860 Fifth Avenue

Two-bed, 2-1/2-bath, 1,800-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $1.4875 million. Selling: $1.425 million.

Charges: $2,100; 50 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: eight months.

DESIGNER DEMOLITION When a financial consultant in his 90's died about a year ago, he left behind this apartment, a remnant of a different era. Decorated by his wife, a well-known designer in the 1920's, the apartment was filled with Old World details: silk fabric on the walls in the entryway, an oval dining room with marble floors, a powder room with an antique sink and toilet, a carved marble mantle around a non-working fireplace in the living room. "It was like walking back in time," said the listing broker, Serena Kaplan of Bellmarc Realty. "It gave you a sense of elegance"-albeit a shabby elegance; everything in the place needs to be redone. Which is just what Ms. Kaplan said the new owner is up to now. "He won't do major structural renovations, but it really does need to be renovated in order to live in it," she said. Wendy Sarasohn of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer.

188 East 76th Street (the Siena)

Two-bed, 2-1/2-bath, 1,407-square-foot condo.

Asking: $995,000. Selling: $995,000.

Charges: $1,000; 40 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: eight weeks.

INSIDER TEASING The estate trying to sell this apartment was approached by a member of the condo's board, who said he might be interested in buying the two-bedroom apartment as quarters for his maid. He asked the executors of the estate to wait a little while before putting it on the market, and they did. "It was a great layout. It had all outside exposures-a lot of [the apartments in the building] face the back," said broker Dolly Lenz of Douglas Elliman. "And the building is fabulous. The president of the board is a genius; he keeps that building immaculate." By the time the board member got around to saying thanks, but no thanks (he decided on much more modest quarters), the apartment had been "tarted up" and was in much better shape for viewing. At the open house, "a hundred people came through, because it was a good price-and 30 wanted it," said Ms. Lenz. But only one-an investment banker with a small family-was willing to pay all cash up front. He had a deal within two hours.

UPPER WEST SIDE

131 Riverside Drive

Two-bed, two-bath, 2,000-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $1.395 million. Selling: $1.3 million.

Charge: $1,292; 46 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: four months.

THE LONG, COLD SUMMER This apartment should have been an easy sell, but like a lot of properties on the market now, the interest in it never reached a boil. It had recently been renovated-"one of the prettiest renovations I've ever seen," said listing broker James Perez of the Halstead Property Group-and it still had lots of original details, 10-foot ceilings, a washer and dryer, and a small entry foyer that leads into a large reception gallery. As for the building, it was built in 1904 and has an exercise room, a children's playroom and a full-time doorman. "Everybody commented on how nice the staff is," added Mr. Perez. But the place just wouldn't move. Mr. Perez showed it to 141 people over the four months it was on the market, and watched three deals fall apart at different stages. The folks who finally bought the place signed a contract two months after first seeing it. Said Mr. Perez: "There was a fair amount of market uncertainty at the time, but when the [buyers] saw the lack of product out there, they came back."

UNION SQUARE

142 East 16th Street

One-bedroom, one-bath, 750-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $349,000. Selling: $345,000.

Charges: $915; 51 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: four months.

THE REAL WORLD: GRAMERCY A recently married couple, both of whom work for MTV, were looking to buy their first apartment together. It's not that they were looking for the kind of place their employer sets up seven strangers in every year or so, but they did have certain criteria. Specifically, they wanted to find something downtown with outdoor space, and they needed a pet-friendly building because of their two miniature Chihuahuas. They landed this apartment, between Irving Place and Third Avenue, which has a balcony large enough to put a table and chairs on. They will do some work in the kitchen before moving in, and will probably fix up the bathrooms next. The postwar building does have a funky feel. Tony Rotolo of Bellmarc Realty described the entrance as having a "strange Asian décor. Some people don't like it, others get into it," he said. The MTV buyers thought it was cool. Potential housewarming gift: Maybe their bosses will let them raid the Jane Street house where The Real World 's next installment is being filmed for quirky housewares.

time getting past the door at 888 Park Avenue. She was headed to a party in the

apartment of her new sister-in-law, Caroline Kennedy, and her husband Ed

Schlossberg, when the paparazzi practically blinded her as she struggled

through the stone-columned entrance, wearing a long, clingy black dress and

carrying a Barneys shopping bag.

Things haven't gotten any easier at the building. On Nov.

13, 888 Park's board voted not to allow Bradley J. Wechsler, 49, co-chairman

and co–chief executive of Imax Corporation, and his wife, Patti Newberger, into

the co-op. Their decision was characterized as a "broadside" to all involved,

said one observer.

Mr. Wechsler and Ms. Newberger thought the co-op board's

approval was a fait accompli; they have friends in the building. The couple

selling the apartment (to move to a smaller apartment) seemed to agree. "The

seller was all scheduled to move; the boxes were there," said one broker.

Mr. Wechsler and Ms. Newberger saw the 5,200-square-foot

apartment practically before it went on the market for $13 million just after

Labor Day. They decided they wanted it immediately-"It's one of the most

glamorous apartments I've ever seen," said the seller's broker, Michele Kleier

of Gumley Haft Kleier-and signed a contract for just under $13 million about 24

hours later.

The 13-room corner apartment has six rooms facing Park

Avenue, a 40-foot entrance, a 14-by-18-foot master suite (with two bathrooms, a

sitting room and three walk-in closets), four additional bedrooms, a library

and a fireplace. The doors are made of polished cherry wood and the floors are

mahogany. It was extensively renovated a few years ago. The sellers bought the

apartment-the largest one in the building-in the early 1990's. (Maintenance is

$4,225.)

Everything proceeded without a hint of the couple being

undesirable to the co-op board, sources said. "It was a complete shocker," said

a broker about the board's decision. "They were impeccable candidates, and I

know they had really powerful friends. It is absolutely mystifying."

No justification for the rejection was made, and neither Mr.

Wechsler nor his broker, Cindy Kurtin of Stribling & Associates, would

comment, but Imax's stock has plummeted 83 percent so far this year. Mr.

Wechsler and his partner, Richard Gelfond-who bought Imax in 1994 when it was

cash-strapped and turned it around-started trying to sell the Toronto-based

company in July, when they hired Wasserstein Perella (which owns about a 30

percent share in Imax) to find a buyer for all or part of the company. The

company's stock soared on the hope that a studio like Disney would acquire it.

No such luck. Meanwhile, five of the over 200 Imax theater operators worldwide

have filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S., and the partners have bought

800,000 company shares in what they called an act of faith in the company's

future.

The apartment at 888 Park Avenue went back on the market on

Nov. 20. Sources said that since the turn-down, Mr. Wechsler and Ms. Newberger

have looked at other apartments, including ones at 941 Park Avenue and 969

Fifth Avenue. "The apartments they are looking at are less money, but they need

more work," said a broker.

Still, the couple hasn't taken their 11-room apartment at

784 Park Avenue off the market. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment

went on the market for $6.25 million on Oct. 27; maintenance is $2,975.

Said one broker of the surprising situation: "Whoever turned

them down obviously played the game until the end."

UPPER WEST SIDE

251 West 89th Street Two-bed, two-bath, 1,700-square-foot condo Asking: $1.12 million. Selling: $1.1 million. Charges: $832. Taxes: $250. Time on the market: three months.

THE APARTMENT YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD TO HAVE The sellers of

this two-bedroom apartment in an early-1900's, family-oriented building hadn't

really intended to move. "The apartment was very pretty," said their broker,

Richard Mortimer of Douglas Elliman. "It had great floors and French doors

everywhere; it was really charming, if a little dark." The couple, who have two

children, were satisfied with their place, but were looking casually at other

apartments. "Maybe they would have liked something bigger," said Mr. Mortimer,

"but there was no major thrust of looking." Then, during the summer, Mr.

Mortimer told them about a 3,400-square-foot condo on Riverside Drive in the

90's. "It was their dream apartment: It looked like a brownstone mansion, and

if they didn't move quickly, they would have lost it," he explained. "They did

everything they could not to lose it." They signed a contract for $3 million

and closed the purchase in August. They put this place on the market in July,

and two doctors bought it in September. According to their broker, the wait

"felt ominous."

WEST VILLAGE

273 West 12th Street Three-story, 2,200-square-foot townhouse. Asking: $2.695 million. Selling: $2.705 million. Time on the market: six weeks.

HOW TO CLEAR WRITER'S BLOCK 

This three-story Federal townhouse first came on the market over a year

ago for $2.495 million, but the seller, a freelance writer, didn't like having

to show it. "He couldn't accommodate both the showing and the writing," said

his broker, Sara Gelbard of the Corcoran Group. So he took it off the market

and didn't put it back on until May, when he could write from his summer home.

The writer's intolerance probably served him well, because the second time the

house came on the market, the asking price had gone up by $200,000. Not that

anybody minded. According to Ms. Gelbard, a model had signed a contract and was

waiting on a signature when a couple came in and overbid with an offer of $2.7

million. The house, circa 1830, is located between Greenwich Avenue and West

Fourth Street and has wide plank floors, central air and a garden in the back.

TRIBECA

47 Vestry Street Two-bed, two-bath, 2,200-square-foot co-op. Asking: $1.1 million. Selling: $1.075 million. Charges: $1,260; 47 percent tax deductible. Time on the market: six months.

HOW TO NOT MEET THE PARENTS 

This apartment originally came on the market in April for $1.2 million.

The sellers accepted an offer in May, but then the buyer had a change of heart.

In June, the price dropped to $1.1 million, and a couple with a small child

came along, trying to escape Chelsea and interested in Tribeca's public

schools, and bought it in late October. The apartment is in a 10-unit loft

building on the corner of Vestry and Greenwich streets. According to their

broker, Brett Grabel of William B. May, they will relocate the kitchen, create

a home office and put in a third bedroom. The remodeling of the

2,200-square-foot apartment will take several months. In the meantime, they've

moved in to her parents' place and will spend the holidays on the Upper East

Side. "[The parents] spend the winter in Florida," explained the broker.

In this case, ousted American Express chief executive James Robinson III and his wife Linda Robinson, the new vice chairman of Young & Rubicam Inc., cozied up to a social acquaintance of theirs, Clifton Robbins, with a quiet offer to buy his 17-room apartment at 778 Park Avenue in early May.

The Robinsons swooped in with their $17.7 million deal before the apartment could be put on the market, thus cutting out any brokers–and any other interested buyers–who might have been preying on owners in the top-tier building, where Brooke Astor, Vera Wang and Claudia Cohen live. Those same miffed brokers expect a contract to be signed immediately, for the Robinsons to sell their apartment at 550 Park Avenue and for Mr. Robbins, a partner of the Greenwich, Conn., private equity firm General Atlantic Partners, to move permanently to the home he already owns in Greenwich.

Mr. Robbins and the Robinsons would not comment, but on May 22 the accepted offer was logged into brokers' computers.

The Robinsons are fans of the no-broker way of apartment shopping. They bought their current 10-room apartment–on the 17th floor of 550 Park Avenue–in a similar manner in December 1991, when it had a $2.9 million price tag. Before that, their approximately $6 million apartment at Museum Towers, 15 West 53rd Street, was purchased by American Express.

The tactic was new to Mr. Robbins, 42, who bought the 6,500-square-foot apartment with three fireplaces at 778 Park Avenue in 1996 for $5.5 million. In late 1999, he became the third partner to leave Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company in its 23-year history, when he decided to jump to General Atlantic Partners to focus on technology investments. He was about to put the six-bedroom, nine-and-a-half-bath apartment on the market with Brown Harris Stevens' Cathy Franklin, according to several brokers.

The Robinsons still have to pass the board's muster. "They better have staggering numbers or else [they] won't get in there," said one broker about the 1931 building at the northwest corner of 73rd Street, which was designed by Rosario Candela for developer Charles Newmark. The last sale in the building was in May 1997, when socialite Gloria Gurney sold her duplex for $6 million in favor of the $4.2 million penthouse. In 1994, Ronald Perelman bought an apartment there for $8 million.

Another broker agreed: The board places a higher dependence on money in the bank than social status. "It's a gorgeous building, but [has] a much easier board than other buildings."

Maybe the Robinsons have more buying power since the missus' public relations firm, Robinson Lerer & Montgomery, was swallowed by Young & Rubicam in early March. Robinson Lerer represents America Online, Bertlesmann, Oxygen Media, Pfizer and Texaco. Mr. Robinson, 64, is a managing partner at R.R.E. Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm he helped found.

Though the Robinsons will likely go it alone in selling their apartment at 550 Park, they may want to walk across the hall and discuss matters with their neighbors, since the other top-floor apartment in the building went on the market on May 19 for $17 million, with Patricia Patterson of Sotheby's International Realty.

UPPER EAST SIDE

COME ON 'A CORCORAN'S HOUSE: REAL ESTATE BLONDE COUGHS UP $3.5 MILLION FOR CARNEGIE HILL CO-OP You've seen her, with her retro red power suit and blond buzz cut, tapping on a PowerBook to Rosemary Clooney's "Come On 'A My House" in those ubiquitous ads. Now, see her suffer the market she's helped hype.

Barbara Corcoran, the 51-year-old chairwoman of the real estate firm bearing her name–which is, in turn, almost always printed right next to an image of her face–was approved by the co-op board of 1192 Park Avenue on May 19 in her purchase of a $3.5 million, three-bedroom co-op.

Even with a staff of 500 brokers, Ms. Corcoran is the portrait of a buyer: She said she's paying "35 percent more" than she would have a year and a half ago, when she started looking for a new place for herself, her husband, Bill Higgins, and her 6 year old son, Tommy.

She blames it on that suit, that PowerBook and that ad with the catchy song. "Finding the time to look for apartments and making the mental space to move is another matter," griped Ms. Corcoran, from her company's Madison Avenue headquarters.

Then there's the market, which had her tagging along with her own brokers, as well as the competition–including Jed Garfield of Leslie J. Garfield & Company and George van der Ploeg of Alice F. Mason Ltd. "Shelves are so bare that I, as a buyer, was in shock, along with all the other buyers in Manhattan, at how little there is to see."

In the end, her connections came through. In January, an attorney and his wife decided to unofficially see how much they could get for the apartment at 1192 Park, also home to Corcoran broker Jody La Monte. Ms. La Monte immediately informed her boss, who quickly saw the apartment and made an offer before the apartment ever really went on the market. The offer was accepted the next day via cell phone, while Ms. Corcoran was riding around town in broker Sharon Baum's Rolls-Royce. A contract was signed on Jan. 21.

The 2,700-square-foot apartment near 94th Streetis also near Tommy's school, St. David's, on 89th Street. It also has a 23-by-25-foot kitchen and a study. "I've never had a room of my own," said Ms. Corcoran, one of 10 children who grew up in New Jersey sharing a bedroom with three siblings.

Before moving in June, Ms. Corcoran will renovate the bathrooms and knock down the walls between the living room and dining room. Her old apartment at 190 East 72nd Street should go for between $1.1 and $1.3 million. "I'll put my apartment on the market as soon as I can get my husband to clean out the closets," she said. What's the hurry?

MANSION OF THE OPERA GUY: TOBIN RESIDENCE AT 711 PARK AVENUE SELLS FOR ALMOST $7 MILLION The estate of Robert L. Tobin, a member of the board of the Metropolitan Opera, whose flamboyant opera capes made him infamous on opening nights, sold his five-story townhouse at 711 Park Avenue for $7.2 million on May 15.

Mr. Tobin's former home is one of only a handful of private addresses on Park Avenue. He used it as a pied à terre , until he died of cancer at age 66 on April 26. "He never lived there full time," said broker Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens, who sold the house with Neil Gallagher of the same firm. "During opera season, he'd be there."

He was also a board member of the Museum of Modern Art, and sources said that his home was filled with his eclectic private collection. "Each floor had stuff from another area of his interests," said Ms. Del Nunzio.

Mr. Tobin resided in San Antonio, where he was chairman of the board of his family's company, Tobin Surveys Inc., the largest map maker to the oil industry, until the company was bought by private investors on Feb. 28, 1998. Mr. Tobin had been working at the company since his father died in a plane crash when he was 19. He and his mother, Margaret Batts Tobin, purchased the house near 69th Street in 1963. Every floor has large bay windows overlooking Park Avenue, a winding central staircase, a master bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows and a balcony overlooking the garden from the third floor.

The house went on the market for $14 million last March. The asking price was reduced to $11.5 million last July and again to $8.975 million in October. The buyer, an attorney who is married to an architect, was represented by Antony Sargent, a broker with Douglas Elliman, who would not comment on the deal

Mr. Tobin's estate is also selling the adjacent 20-foot-wide townhouse at 709 Park Avenue–which he bought in 1972 for $410,000–for $4.9 million. It houses eight separate apartments, but brokers say two or three could be vacated immediately. According to sources, a contract has been drawn up with a purchaser, but it has not yet been signed.

1049 Fifth Avenue

Three-bed, three-bath, 2,150-square-foot condo.

Asking: $2.25 million. Selling: $2.15 million.

Charges: $2,050.50. Taxes: $1,628.

Time on the market: One week.

SOUTH AMERICAN 'INDUSTRIALISTS' BRING CUBISM TO RUSH LIMBAUGH'S CONDO BUILDING An independently wealthy South American couple in their early 50's (their broker described them as "industrialists") had been living in Palm Beach, until Florida started to bore them. They came to New York looking for the perfect cube: a square apartment for about $2 million, said their broker, Mercedes Schwartz of the Corcoran Group. The wife, a decorator, saw great things in this apartment, with bedrooms on opposite sides, a separate entertaining area and a square living room, in an 86th Street condo with a Fifth Avenue address purchased from the city. The couple put in an offer, but were outbid. They matched the new bid, but someone else went even higher. The South Americans were almost ready to give up. "I had to hold their hands and say you never know," their broker said. A week after the bidding war, the other buyer backed out of the deal. The South Americans closed in April and will move in June. If things get too square, Rush Limbaugh, a neighbor, should fix that.

900 Fifth Avenue

Four-bed, five-bath, 4,000-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $6.8 million. Selling: $6 million.

Charges: $4,876; 30 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: Seven months.

THE CASH MACHINE This very traditional apartment originally went on the market at the end of 1998, when the owner went into a nursing home. The people managing her affairs were not ready to sell the apartment just yet, so they planned to find a renter who might want eventually to buy it. Lorri Gorman, a broker at William B. May Real Estate, showed the apartment–with its large terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue off the living room, library and master bedroom–to a couple with two kids who wanted to do just that. But the co-op board wagged its finger at the idea and that was that. Not only does 900 Fifth Avenue have a no-renting policy, as one of the city's "all-cash" buildings, it doesn't take any financing from buyers. The apartment went off the market and so did the couple. In September, the apartment popped back up in Ms. Gorman's computer listing of apartments for sale, with an asking price of $6.8 million. The same couple offered $6 million and the board nodded in approval. The suitcase of cash was produced and the deal closed in April.

UPPER WEST SIDE

190 Riverside Drive

Four-bed, four-bath, 3,553-square-foot condo.

Asking: $3.495 million. Selling: $3.495 million.

Charges: $2,169.44. Taxes: $1,036.97.

Time on the market: One day.

THE NEIGHBORS GOT MILLIONS! This 11-story building, circa 1908, was purchased in 1996 for $7 million by Property Markets Group, which converted the building from rental apartments to a condominium. Occupied apartments are being purchased by those tenants interested, and vacated apartments are being combined, wherever possible, into nine-room residences resembling those in the original design of the building's architect, Ralph S. Townsend. Returning all of the apartments to their original configuration is "more of a dream than a plan," said Elliott Joseph, asset manager for the building. As of now, five former renters have bought their one- or two-bedroom apartments, 34 rent-regulated tenants remain in the building and P.M.G. has managed to reconstruct and sell only three nine-room apartments. As with almost all new construction these days, P.M.G. found a buyer before they started to create this apartment out of three separate units. The sale closed on April 27. According to Iva Spitzer of Douglas Elliman, who is selling the larger units for P.M.G., the new owners are expecting–roughly–oak paneled rooms, plaster decorative ceilings, plus the remaining original sconces and original fixtures in the bathrooms.

322 West 87th Street

Four-story, 4,000-square-foot townhouse.

Asking: $1.85 million. Selling: $1.785 million.

Time on the market: Two months.

THE 4,000-SQUARE-FOOT ANSWER TO A 2,500-SQUARE-FOOT PROBLEM A married couple with three children under the age of 5 was looking for a seven-room apartment for about $1 million. But after two months, they threw in the towel and bought this brownstone instead. "Frankly, I was just walking home one day and I walked by a brownstone for sale," said the new owner, a stocks analyst. He familiarized himself with the market and found two houses in his price range. This house was already configured so that he and his family and their live-in nanny can occupy the middle two floors and rent out the first and fourth floors. They've already found two tenants, each relocating to New York for business. On their two floors, they're renovating the bathrooms and the kitchen and splitting one of the large bedrooms in two. They will move in July.

860 U.N. Plaza

Two-bed, two-bath, approximately 1,620-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $850,000. Selling: $800,000.

Charges: $1,703.44; 35 percent tax deductible.

Time on the market: 2 1/2 months.

CAUTION: DATED DECOR MAY BE HARMFUL TO YOUR WALLET This apartment, with views of the gardens at the United Nations and the East River–and soon Trump World Tower to the south–was just sold by the estate of Dr. Ernst Wynder who, in 1953, was one of the first people to link smoking to cancer. Four years later, the Surgeon General's office issued its first warning that excessive smoking may cause lung cancer. And about 10 years after that, Dr. Wynder moved into this apartment right after the building went up. Dr. Wynder, who was also the founder and former president of the American Health Foundation, whose research is focused on the prevention of chronic diseases, died last July at the age of 77. His wife, Sandra, has moved to Greenwich Village, said Joanna Simon, a broker with Fox Residential Group who is representing Dr. Wynder's estate. But the apartment was holding onto its past. "The decorating was very heavy and dramatic," said one broker, trying to explain why many apartment shoppers were turned off by the place. "It wasn't the furniture so much but the paneling they had installed. A number of people were interested, but they felt it would cost too much to redecorate." Diane Dickenson, also of Fox Residential Group, who represented the buyers, agreed: "I'm sure it was great at the time, but it made the space seem much smaller and heavier then it really was." The buyers were not deterred. They have stripped the paneling, redone the floors and painted the apartment in light shades.

In early June, a $10 million deal between Mr. Hilfiger and the estate of the late poet Louise Crane for the languishing fourth-floor apartment of 820 Fifth was approved by the board of the high-pedigree building. The apparent ease with which the designer, whose drooping designs have been co-opted by hip-hop culture, sailed into one of the most closely guarded buildings in the city has high-end brokers in shock. The deal was expected to close on June 9.

In early May, Mr. Hilfiger toured the Crane apartment at 820 Fifth, a 1916 building at 63rd Street populated by such well-to-do Manhattanites as gallery owner William Acquavella, who spent $9.8 million for the 11th floor in 1993; Warner Brothers chief executive Terry Semel, who bought the seventh floor for $12.25 million; and socialite Jayne Wrightsman, the influential co-op board president who lives on the third floor-just below Mr. Hilfiger's would-be home.

UPPER EAST SIDE

TOMMY HILFIGER PASSES 820 FIFTH AVENUE BOARD. Real estate sources familiar with the fourth-floor apartment said access to it was restricted by Jim Dolan, a lawyer for Mrs. Wrightsman. According to one broker, individuals wanting to tour the space had to be preapproved by Mr. Dolan before they could even make an appointment.

The 6,500-square-foot Crane apartment had been placed on the market by her estate in February 1998 for $13.5 million. This spring, the asking price was lowered to $11.5 million. Fashion designer Valentino Garavani was interested in buying the space, but the co-op board nixed him.

Shortly thereafter, Band-Aid heiress Libbet Johnson attempted to spend $27 million on both the Crane apartment and the fifth-floor apartment above it, an equally sprawling pad being sold by socialite Nancy Richardson-who wanted $16.5 million for the home she shared with her ex-husband, financier Frank Richardson. But duplexing the two units would have been expensive and time-consuming, especially considering the co-op' summer-only work rules,and by that August, Ms. Johnson had backed out of the deal-even though she had been pre-approved by the board in March.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hilfiger was busy making the right connections, real estate sources familiar with his deal said. The designer and his wife, Susie Hilfiger, were able to establish a friendship with Ms. Wrightsman. One broker also said that Mr. Hilfiger had recently purchased some costly art from Mr. Acquavella-perhaps in an attempt to curry favor in the building.

A member of Mr. Acquavella's gallery staff would not confirm the sale of art to Mr. Hilfiger. "The only thing I know is that he's trying to get into the building," she said.

Mr. Hilfiger isn't likely to move in before the end of summer 2000, given the apartment's need for renovations and the co-op's stringent renovation rules: Work can be done only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. If all goes according to plan, though, the designer will have pulled off a coup both social and financial.

As one high-end broker put it, "Eleven and a half [is] a tremendous value for that apartment … being one of the top three or four buildings in New York."

68 East 86th Street

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,700-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $675,000. Selling: $655,000.

Charges: $1,651; 65 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: six weeks.

WESTCHESTER VACATION. With a student at Brearley and a co-ed at college, a couple bought a place in Westchester and put this 1,700-square-foot co-op up for sale: They were asking $675,000 by summer. (Goodbye, tuition check!) Another couple with their own spread in the suburbs saw the two-bedroom, two-bath apartment between Park and Madison avenues as a good spot to throw dinner parties-there's a very formal dining room. After four months of searching and 25 inferior prewar apartments, the suburbanites paid $655,000 in late May. Look, kids: Bedford, Mount Kisco! Broker: William B. May (Joanne Greene); Charles H. Greenthal & Company (Mickey Cohen).

131 East 69th Street

Three-bed, three-bath, 3,000-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $1.85 million. Selling: $1.875 million.

Charges: $2,838; 33 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two weeks.

ESTATE OF PHOEBE CATES' FATHER ASKS $1.85 MILLION QUESTION. Joseph Cates, the creator of the 1950's game show The $64,000 Question and the father of actress Phoebe Cates-otherwise known as Kevin Kline's wife-lived in this apartment until he died in October 1998 at age 74. Seven months later, the sixth-floor apartment prompted a two-party bidding war; the new owners, a couple, drove the price up $25,000 to $1.875 million. Located at the corner of Lexington Avenue, the apartment has nine rooms, but Cates had combined the living room and the library and merged two smallish maid's rooms into one large spare bedroom. Broker: William B. May Company (Roger Erickson); Edward Lee Cave (Jane Cannon).

UPPER WEST SIDE

401 West End Avenue

Two-bed, one-bath, 900-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $375,000. Selling: $370,000.

Charges: $1,112; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: three months.

HOW MANY BATHROOMS DOES THAT CO-OP IN THE WINDOW HAVE? The photograph in the window of the Corcoran Group's Upper West Side office did not emphasize that there was only one bathroom. A Polo Jeans merchandiser and her banker husband, married just six months, espied the listing of this two-bedroom, one-bath prewar co-op from the street. They had been living in what broker Joy Weiner described as a "tiny, stark rental," and the co-op in the window was housing a family of four. Within a day, they had made an offer of $370,000. The sellers had purchased a larger apartment on West 112th Street near Riverside Drive, officially putting an end to the family's morning shower line. Broker: Corcoran Group (Joy Weiner and Carolyn Edwards).

GREENWICH VILLAGE

17 Grove Street and 100 Bedford Street

Three-story town house and two-story cottage.

Asking: $3.2 million. Selling: $2.975 million.

Time on the market: three weeks.

TWO BUILDINGS FOR THEM, NONE FOR YOU. Ever thought about buying your own house? Maybe one with a guest cottage? Perhaps in the West Village. Got $3 million in cash? An entertainment executive and his wife did. And they forked it over to the real estate shark who purchased this pair of buildings at the intersection of Grove and Bedford streets in 1996 for $1.625 million. Sure, he spent $900,000 on renovations to the 1822 house and its accompanying guest cottage-a sophisticated watering system for the courtyard garden, central air-conditioning, and a fancy stereo in the cottage, not to mention the current must-haves like a Sub-Zero refrigerator, marble baths, and a granite kitchen-but it paid off, didn't it? The first step was landing those splashy spreads in Travel & Leisure and New York magazine when it went on the market this spring. He wanted $3.2 million for the renovated pair of houses. The three-story house has a master bedroom plus two to spare; there's another bedroom in the cottage. The buyers had owned a couple of town houses on the Upper East Side, but with the kids out of the house they thought they'd let their hair down in the Village. Broker: Halstead Property Company (Rosa Murphy and Gail Ward).

SOHO

170 Mercer Street

One-bed, two-bath, 2,400-square-foot condo.

Asking: $995,000. Selling: $996,000.

Charges: $642. Taxes: $807.

Time on the market: two weeks.

ITALO-AMERICAN WAR ON MERCER STREET. When the Italian businessman who owned this apartment informed the sublessor that he was putting it up for sale, the renter went on strike. He stopped paying rent and held the sunken living room, fireplace and French windows with courtyard view hostage, according to broker Richard Orenstein. The apartment couldn't be shown until a lengthy court battle finally forced out the tenant-who, in an act of vengeance, snipped the wires under the switch plates on the walls. Not a problem for the scientist in his 50's who bought the place for $1,000 above the asking price. Broker: Halstead Property Company (Richard Orenstein).

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

54 Willow Street

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,050-square-foot co-op.

Asking: $359,000. Selling: $340,000.

Charges: $911; 54 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: one month.

FLYING TO DUMBO. A bond trader and a reporter for Forbes magazine moved their dog and their child into a new condominium near the Manhattan Bridge. A female vice president at Quick & Reilly, a Manhattan stock brokerage firm, bid $340,000 for their old apartment-a two-bedroom, two-bath co-op on Willow Street near Cranberry Street in Brooklyn Heights-after seeing it at an open house. The couple wanted $359,000, but the V.P. was not outbid.

Broker: Corcoran (Ann Doyle).

Additional reporting by Sam Charap.

"I got married recently, and my wife has twin daughters, and we have two dogs," said Mr. Feigen, 68, who owns an eponymous gallery on West 20th Street in Chelsea and has lived in the duplex for 20 years. "I've been looking around New York for larger apartments–and it's not easy."

Mr. Feigen, who resides primarily in Bedford, N.Y., refused to comment on his contract with Mr. Kluge, the chairman of Metromedia International Group Inc., saying that the sale was in the "preliminary" stage. Brokers said Mr. Kluge still has to be approved by the co-op board of 953 Fifth, a small building with only seven units, which one described as "a town house that grew too much." Mr. Feigen's nine-room duplex is strikingly narrow, but it has three bedrooms.

Mr. Kluge already owns a penthouse atop Metromedia's headquarters at 215 East 67th Street, near Second Avenue, according to his publicist. But he spends much of his time on a 10,000-acre estate in Charlottesville, Va., with his companion Maria Kutner, a former masseuse.

"Every apartment I've looked at has considerably more space," said Mr. Feigen, who began his real estate search several months ago, looking at apartments in 10 Gracie Square and 765 Park Avenue, among others, before signing a deal at 960 Fifth.

Mr. Feigen is also still awaiting approval by the co-op board–and he is seeking entree into one of the city's premiere buildings, a 1927 Rosario Candela design. Claus von Bülow lived there for years; socialite Anne Bass, whom Mr. Feigen dated in the late 1980's, lives there now. The building is known for its private dining room called the Georgian Suite, which caters solely to residents. If Mr. Feigen were to get in, he said, he'd be "spending more time in the city."

The co-op board may be swayed by the fact that Mr. Feigen also has found a buyer to pay just over $12 million for his longtime uptown office and exhibition space–a town house at 49 East 68th Street. He purchased the house in 1989 for $6 million and put it on the market for $12.95 million in January and eventually reduced the asking price to $12.5 million. Since opening his Chelsea gallery in 1997, Mr. Feigen said, "we do very few exhibitions uptown." He is looking for smaller office space in the

neighborhood.

"For certain things, you want traffic. For our business, we don't want traffic."

SAGAPONACK, L.I.

JOY BEHAR'S VIEW FROM THE HAMPTONS. Joy Behar, the 56-year-old co-hostess of ABC's The View , doesn't only plug her new book Joy Shtick over coffee and danish with Barbara Walters and Star Jones. Starting this summer, she'll be able to hawk it in the Hamptons, where she and her 27-year-old daughter, ceramic artist Eve Behar, bought a cottage on Northwest Path in Sagaponack for $412,000 in May.

The mother-and-daughter house is a barn-style structure built in 1985 and redesigned by Jack Monahan, the architect famous for his so-called "Zodiac Homes," who passed away last December. Monahan's trademarks were double-height ceilings and brick fireplaces–both of which are features of the three-bedroom house.

The Behars purchased the house from a couple of antiques dealers who had a shop in nearby Southampton. The dealers first put their house on the market last fall, asking $525,000; the ambitious price was lowered to $455,000, then to $425,000. The Behars were able to take another $13,000 off.

According to local brokers, the two women made a smart buy. "Sagaponack North is a very hot area," said Simon Harrison, a broker at Harbor Cove Realty familiar with Ms. Behar's house. "South of the highway, prices went through the roof, and north of the highway land is inexpensive.… And it's not that crowded–you can avoid the majority of the traffic."

UPPER EAST SIDE

16 East 96th Street

Two-bed, two-bath, 1,550-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $629,000. Selling: $618,000.

Charges: $1,028; 52 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two weeks.

ATTORNEYS RELUCTANTLY FORGO TRIBOROUGH BRIDGE VIEW FOR CENTRAL PARK. Two young attorneys were renting an apartment on the Upper East Side when they decided they needed an investment. Since the wife commutes to Long Island every day, she told their broker they wanted a two-bedroom apartment on East End Avenue–from which she could hop in the car and head over the Triborough Bridge to work. (Never mind that her husband works in midtown.) The couple was quickly outbid on several apartments on their favored street and had to widen their target radius. Not long after, they were 10 blocks north and peeking around this Carnegie Hill building at 16 East 96th Street, near Madison Avenue, which their broker, Rhea Stein, in a great exaggeration, calls "the East Side Dakota." Constructed in 1904, the building has intricate ceiling moldings and window borders with floral detail. The seller, who had lived there for five years, had made a few alterations, like running speaker wires through the wall. He was moving west, so the two attorneys moved north. Broker: Halstead Property Company (Lauren Cangiano); Corcoran Group (Rhea F. Stein).

245 East 93rd Street

Three-bed, three-bath, 1,560-square-foot condo.

Selling: $750,000.

Charges: $742. Taxes: $711.

Time on the market: one day.

THE MOST AFFORDABLE $700,000 APARTMENT. Often, when a client says "I want to pay about $700,000," what a broker hears is "I will pay significantly more than $700,000 to get what I want." That was the case with this soon-to-retire female doctor and her broker Toby Gamsu. When they started working together, the doctor presented Ms. Gamsu with a list of musts: three bedrooms, three baths, excellent views, a large terrace in a condominium in Carnegie Hill. "It was ridiculous," Ms. Gamsu said she told the doctor. Nevertheless, the broker knew of an apartment that fit those parameters–but it had been on the market three or four years ago. Like a duteous broker, Ms. Gamsu asked her colleague to inquire whether the owner–who had been renting out the space since purchasing it–would sell it for $750,000. Like we said, the broker knew the doctor would be willing if the owner was. An that's the way it happened. Broker: William B. May Company (Toby Gamsu).

TRIBECA

122 Chambers Street

One-bed, one-bath, 1,700-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $525,000. Selling: $525,000.

Charges: $1,025; 54 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: 25 weeks.

A CO-OP BOARD IN IT FOR THE MONEY. A lawyer and an investment banker–a very 90's New York merger–conducted their property search the hard way: through the classified ads. One Sunday, they came across a tempting listing in The New York Times : TriBeCa loft, maple floors, tin ceilings, semiprivate roof garden. But when they called to get more information,

they discovered the loft was located on Chambers Street near Broadway, and wrote it off because they didn't want to live with the noise of Chambers Street commotion. A few Sundays later, another listing caught their eye: "Live for Free in 2005," it read, above a description of a TriBeCa loft. The apartment turned out to be the very same Chambers Street noise trap. But this time when they called, they were told that starting in 2005, the apartment owners would split the revenue from leasing out the commercial space on the ground floor. When the couple agreed to at least tour the apartment, they met the seller, an artist who was moving north to Connecticut and was eager to make a deal–she had already dropped the price from $589,000 to $525,000. So the couple signed up and bought earplugs. They claim the din isn't so bad after all. Broker: Corcoran (Sharon Thompson and Viviane El-Yachar).

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

129 Columbia Heights

Two-bed, 1.5-bath, 850-square-foot prewar co-op.

Asking: $385,000. Selling: $385,000.

Charges: $400; 50 percent tax-deductible.

Time on the market: two days.

WANTED: HOME FOR TIMES BEST SELLERS. A New York Times copy editor in his 50's recently purchased his first apartment: a late-19th-century co-op near the Brooklyn Promenade, with waterfront and Manhattan views. He had lived around the corner in a brownstone rental apartment for about 25 years. For now, the copy editor will move into the larger bedroom and use the smaller, 10-by-10-foot bedroom as a library with a desk, reading chair and, of course, many shelves. But as his collection grows, the rooms' occupants may have to switch places. As long as there's space for the books, he said, he'll never move again. Broker: William B. May (Lynn Yellin).