Order! All rise!
The judgments on Judge Judy might not be real, and the participants may only receive a few hundred dollars for appearing on the show, but Judith Sheindlin‘s payday is very real: the most famous judge on television just sold a pricey pied-à-terre at the Sherry Netherland Hotel, according to city records.
Her Honor (the woman, not the woman’s 150-foot yacht) picked up the two-bedroom co-op on the 11th floor of 781 Fifth Avenue back in 2009, paying $6.75 million. It was a healthy discount off the nearly $8 million ask—and a massive break from the original $15 million price tag the co-op was sporting back in 2008. But what goes around comes around and Judge Judy also got less than she wanted, settling for $8.5 million though she was originally asking $9 million.
Given the common charges levied by the full-service apartment hotel—a whopping $17,411 a month—we’re guessing she didn’t walk away with much of a profit. Then again, Judge Judy definitely doesn’t need the money: last year the San Francisco Chronicle said she makes $45 million a year, making her the highest paid celebrity other than LeBron James.
The unit is sited on the “most desriable southwest corner” of the tower, according to the listing (the notoriously tight-lipped Corcoran Group—we consider ourselves lucky to get a no comment—brokered the sale; Deborah Grubman and David Dubin had the exclusive) and boasts two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a small accessory room on the tenth floor. (Official documents classify the 6.75-foot by 15-foot room as a maid’s room, but the listing, perhaps bowing to New Yorkers’ declining interest in live-in help, calls it “storage/home office with a full bath.”)
Bernard and Joan Spain are the buyers, and they’re no strangers to the world of iconic New York City property, or apartment hotels: they were some of the first buyers at the newly-condoized Plaza Hotel back in 2007, when they picked up a two-bedroom for $7.2 million. We suppose that once you’ve ordered room service while watching daytime TV, it’s hard to go back to fixing yourself a tuna fish sandwich. You might, after all, miss one of Judge Judy’s scathing speeches while you’re busy in the kitchen.
