Melanie Lazenby, the 36-year-old Elliman broker whose father, George, starred in the wildly wonderful On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, finally has an apartment all her own. According to a deed, she just sold off the $1.85 million West Ninth Street co-op she owned with her mother, the Gannett publishing heiress Christina Matser, then bought a smaller condo at the new Superior Ink.
Ms. Lazenby, who The Times described as “tall, impeccable and fair-haired” in an article about women who adore their tiny pet dogs, became a real estate broker about a decade ago when she moved to New York from Paris. “I was actually looking for a French work week. I wanted a 30-hour week! Thirty-five hour, whatever it is!” When she speaks, she tends to break into fits of wonderful giggling.
First, she rented at 89th Street and Lexington Avenue, then at 81st and Third (“that was disgusting”), and then she bought a place, with her mother, at 77th and Park. Later she moved to Mercer Street with a boyfriend. “It just completely blew up. We broke up and he married someone six weeks later. Married someone! I don’t know! And she was ugly. I know that’s not everything, but it was just like—and then when that happened, I decided to buy something downtown, because I actually liked it.”
In 2005, she spent $1,333,000 on a four-and-a-half-room co-op at 49 West Ninth Street, a Beaux-Arts townhouse with an elevator and crown moldings. To be fair, she would have been the sole owner if she wasn’t a real estate broker. “My net worth is perfectly fine; it’s just with people who are commission-only—they wanted a guarantor.”
Four years later, she was ready to leave for Superior Ink, where her apartment is smaller but there isn’t a co-op board to please. So there won’t be any mothers on the deed.
Last year, during the Bond actor’s difficult divorce from current wife Pam Shriver, Ms. Lazenby and her mother described years of physical and emotional abuse. “I love him, but sometimes people you love do things that you don’t approve of,” the broker said this week. “People can change; perhaps he’s changed.”
mabelson@observer.com
