This July, a very select group of very proper Manhattan real estate brokers flocked to Bernard Madoff’s penthouse at 133 East 64th Street. “Everybody kind of wandered around the apartment, and they herded us into the living room,” one of the brokers complained afterward. “I just don’t see how they can make an evaluation on who to use.”
But an evaluation has been made. According to a source, the Sotheby's International Realty brokers Anne Corey and Serena Boardman have been picked to sell Mr. Madoff’s government-seized home. Neither returned messages.
Ms. Corey is lesser known. Her profile at Sotheby’s says her “clientele encompasses a wide group of individuals, including corporate executives, bankers, entertainers, media executives and the international elite.” She attended Stanford and Cambridge, and worked for JP Morgan Chase and Bankers Trust.
Ms. Boardman was the most successful broker in the country last year, according to a ranking published in the Wall Street Journal. “Real estate is serious,” the wonderfully press-shy broker once told The Observer. “It’s not a game.”
“I’m not going to make an announcement or make a remark about who you think we’re selecting. I’ll do this in a matter that’s done in a right way, with a press release,” Deputy U.S. Marshall Roland Ubaldo told The Observer. “I will tell you this: The competition between the realtors for the New York property is stiff; it has been very competitive.”
Earlier on Wednesday, a video tour of the penthouse was released. But no matter what the thing looks and feels like, it will be 2009’s most talked-about listing–a Ponzi version of last year’s Brooke Astor duplex. In March 2008, some of the most proper New York apartment brokers in all the land–Leighton Candler, Kirk Henckels, Roberta Golubock and more–filed into Astor’s red-lacquered library to audition for the right to list her Park Avenue duplex. “Oh, very easy!” Astor’s daughter-in-law, Charlene Marshall, told The Observer about picking Ms. Candler for the job. “She’s very attractive, she’s very nice… She’s very funny, she’s from the South—yay! Good girl, like me.” After a while, the listing went to Mr. Henckels.
“This is now in the hands of the broker,” Mr. Ubaldo said about the Madoff apartment. (It’s not clear if he meant there will be only one official broker, with the second assisting, or if he was speaking colloquially.) “People think that the Madoff name will tarnish it. But I really believe that the cloud has lifted. This is a prime piece of realty.”
mabelson@observer.com
