The late Helen “Peggy” Scholz’s old Upper East Side co-op is about as old world as it gets (during the 1910 census, five of the 13 families in the building listed their occupation as “own income”). With its tromp-l’œil fresco, wood-panelled library and wood-burning fireplaces, Ms. Scholz had lived in her 863 Park Avenue apartment since 1939. She moved into the unit with her husband, composer Ernest Schelling, who promptly expired that same year (the apartment had previously been owned by a cousin of Ms. Scholz, till Mr. Schelling bought it in the 1920s).
But Ms. Scholz passed away in 2007, and the estate of Brooke Astor’s step-daughter has finally found a buyer for the apartment: the decidedly new money Patrick Moxey and wife Bernadette Cruz.
Mr. Moxey made his fortune in the music business, the same as Ernest Schelling, although we suspect that Mr. Schelling may have been a bit perplexed about the rap and electronic direction that the industry has taken (“New things are supposed to be better,” Ms. Scholz once said of her co-op board’s plans to install new metal windows, “but it’s the old things that are better”).
After working with rap and hip-hop stars like Jay-Z and Kelis, Mr. Moxey founded Ultra Music in 1995. The dance music label merged with Sony Music earlier this year and boasts a roster that ranges from Steve Aoki to Wolfgang Gartner, to which Mr. Moxey has added groups like Daft Punk after the merger.
The apartment was asking $6.75 million as recently as March with Brown Harris Stevens’ John Glass, who did not return our request for comment, up from $6.25 million when it was first listed a year ago. But it ultimately sold for much less: Ms. Scholz’s estate got just $5.7 million, according to city records, for the three-bedroom (or more, depending on how small of a space you want to squeeze into) triplex apartment with double-height living room and roof access.
“It’s by far the most important apartment in the building,” said Stribling broker Kirk Henckels, who was not associated with the listing but saw the apartment when it first went on the market. “It was funky, but it was divine.”
“There is no bubble to burst,” Mr. Moxey told In the Mix about the latest electronic dance music craze (though given that The Observer spotted a group of B&T ravers decked out in dayglo clothing on 14th Street this weekend, we have our suspicions that the trend may have peaked). “Everything you see is very much organic.” For his sake, we hope the same is true of the record highs for the Manhattan real estate market.
