It comes with its own ballroom, nine bedrooms, four terraces, heated marble floors and an address on the swankiest street in the most glamorous city in the world. New York’s most expensive apartment is about to go on the market for $70-million.
The Wall Street financier Martin Zweig will invite offers for the 1 022 sq metre apartment this week, the New York Post reported.
In a city of notoriously tiny living spaces, the glory of the three-story residence is its ”grand salon”, a cavernous former hotel ballroom seven metres high, complete with ornate chandeliers.
The penthouse is above the Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue. Anyone scraping together the cash, though, should be aware of the monthly service charge of $48 000.
For that you get full hotel room-service, and twice daily maid service, clean bathrobes and linen and mints on the pillows.
The asking price shows how fully the city has recovered from the devastating terrorist attacks of three years ago.
Zweig bought it from the Australian publishing heiress Lady Mary Fairfax in 1996 for $21,5-million, then a record.
He began by starting an investment newspaper in the 1970s.
He then moved into the hedge-fund business, an arcane but lucrative part of the financial world.
He is also a television pundit and author whose books include Winning on Wall Street.
The record price for a New York apartment was set last year when the financier David Martinez paid $42,5-million for a 1 161 sq metre flat in the sleek, recently completed Time Warner Centre overlooking Central Park. The apartment was sold as a shell for him to furnish as he wanted.
The rise in real estate prices has been felt throughout Manhattan, even in more modest homes.
According to the Corcoran brokerage, the average price exceeded $1-million for the first time this year when a 38% increase took it to $1,2-million.
The average price for a studio apartment rose 11% to $396 000 and the asking price for a one-bedroom flat rose 18% to $646 000.
For two bedrooms the price rose 25% to $1,3-million.
Just because Zweig is asking for $70-million doesn’t mean he will necessarily get it, however.
Lady Fairfax originally listed the apartment on the market for $35-million, before accepting his much lower offer. She had spent $12-million acquiring the then abandoned ballroom in 1988 and adding it to her apartment.
The Post cited the broker who negotiated the 1996 sale as saying: ”I’m very familiar with all the great apartments of New York. I believe [the grand salon] is the most important room in private ownership”.
Zweig could not be reached for comment.
In November 2000 the Johnson & Johnson heiress Elizabeth Johnson listed a 1 858 sq metre apartment in the Trump International hotel and tower for $62-million.
It was created by combining several adjoining apartments, but after it failed to attract a buyer, they were eventually broken up again and sold individually. – Guardian Unlimited Â