Thursday, August 12, 2010

Keith and Kidman Get a New Krib in Manhattan


BUYER: Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $10,000,000
SIZE: 3,248 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Word on the celebrity real estate street is that bizzy as a beaver Oscar winning Aussie actress Nicole Kidman (Nine, Bewitched, Cold Mountain, The Hours) and her Grammy award winning country-pop music crooning huzband Keith Urban are moving into the same high profile New York City building as the Dolce and Gabbana boys.

Last fall it was widely reported here, there, and everywhere that smooth pated Italian fashion queen Domenico Dolce, through a trust, forked over a blistering $29,500,000 to purchase two doo-plex penthouse units of the critically acclaimed Annabelle Selldorf designed building recently erected on the corner of 11th Avenue and West 24th Street, at the edge of the heart of the Chelsea Arts District and across the street from the Gagosian Gallery. 14 of the building's 16 apartments, some of the children may recall, comes with a private 300 square foot "En-Suite Sky Garage™", accessed by driving one's luxury automobile into a giant key-lock elevator that magically lifts the car up to the same level as the the apartment to which it's deeded.

According to the most recent reports, the Australian born Kidman-Urbans plunked down some big American bucks for a doo-plex unit that measures 3,248 square feet and includes 3 bedrooms, 3.5 poopers, and two city view loggias. Miz Kidman and Mister Urban appear to have drove a hard real estate bargain because the puffy lipped actress and her flat iron loving husband reportedly snatched up their new doo-plex pied a terre in the Big Apple for $10,000,000, a figure that our bejeweled abacus indicates is a 20% reduction off the $12,500,000 asking price.

The main living spaces are located on the doo-plex unit's upper floor and include a 20-foot by 22-foot living room with western views over the Hudson River towards New Jersey, and a combination dining room and a gore-may kitchen with folding oiled teak panels that when closed conceal the kitchen equipment. Just beyond the kitchen/dining room, a large study/bedroom with walk-in closet and private pooper has Hudson River views to the west and opens to one of the two covered covered loggias that anchor the eastern corners of the doo-plex . A breezeway–a hallway really–with built in storage closets and a powder pooper links the two loggias and opens into the kitchen as well as to the single car garage in the sky.

The lower floor is accessed by a dramatic staircase that descends from the living room down into a double height great room with two walls of floor to ceiling glass with double glass doors that slide open to glass balustrades that obliterate any visual barrier between the interior spaces and the glittering and enviable views. A guest bedroom with en-suite pooper sits in the north east corner and the master bedroom includes a wall of closets, dressing area and large windowless pooper with teak cabinetry and floors, double sinks sitting on a counter top of imported French glazed lavastone Pyrolave, acid etched mirrors, separate glass enclosed shower, and freestanding honed granite soaking tub.

Amenities in the sleek stainless steel and cast gunmetal glazed terra cotta clad tower that was carefully designed to maintain an architectural dialogue with the industrial lofts and buildings that surround it include a 24/7 attended lobby, key-lock elevators, cold storage for food deliveries, a second floor fitness center with treatment room, Hudson River views, and terraces, and, of course, those private garages.

In addition to Domenico Dolce and the Kidman-Urbans, other owners of residences in the state of the art building include interior designer Jamie Drake, a man blessedly unafraid of color who sold his exuberant Flatiron District loft last year for $2,945,000, and real estate agent extraordinaire Leonard Steinberg.

Prior to coughing up the cash for this new doo-plex condo, Miz Kidman leased a number of high profile apartments including the old Lenny Kravtiz penthouse in SoHo just picked up by Alicia Keyes and Swiz Beatz, another penthouse in SoHo formerly owned by tennis ace Boris Becker and now owned by chat queen Kelly Ripa and her hunky man-mate Mark Consuelos, and another large apartment in the same Chelsea building that Your Mama and the Doctor Cooter once called home.

The alabaster skinned actress and her diminutive huzband own several luxurious residences around the world including a contemporary pile in the same Beverly Hills neighborhood as Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, and Jessica Simpson and a 10,925 square foot beast with 7 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half poopers in Nashville, TN that originally all us real estate gossips thought was purchased by Jessica Simpson.

Miz Kidman and Mister Urban also own a few plum and pricey properties Down Under. In the summer of 2008 it was widely reported that Mister and Missus Kidman-Urban dropped around $6,500,000 (AUS) for a 110 acre spread called Bunya Hill in Sutton Forest, a sleepy and swank enclave in the Southern Highlands about 1.5 hours outside of Sydney.

In the spring of 2009 Miz Kidman dumped her digs in the Darling Point area for $13,200,000 (AUS) after first listing the 4 bedroom waterfront villa a year before with the rumored asking price for $20,000,000 (AUS). The Kidman-Urbans subsequently scooped up a $6,500,000 (AUS) doo-plex penthouse apartment on the 21st floor of a converted office building with panoramic views of the scenic Sydney Harbor.

listing photos and floor plan: Prudential Elliman

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

They also have an $10M,($15M?)apartment in the same Perry Street West Village building Hugh Jackman lives in.

Anonymous said...

I believe Mark and Kelly lived in the building already when Nicole was living there. When Nicole put her apartment on the market, Kelly and Mark bought it and decided to renovate their current apartment with Nicole's old one to make a bigger apartment. The renovation took two years. Kelly talked about it a little on the show. Kelly and Mark lived is one of Donald Trump's apartment complexes while the renovation was taking place.

Lilithcat said...

I will never understand the mindset that designs or buys a $10 million apartment where you have to eat in the kitchen.

Princess Koo-Koo said...

all the wrong people have all the wrong money and buy all the wrong apartments........and thank you for always sharing their antics with us, Mama!

Anonymous said...

ooooooh

this is FABULOUS!!

Anonymous said...

This place looks as cold as Nicole's face. I love windows and a view as much as the next person, but this appears to cross the line into fishbowl territory.

Joshua said...

oh man!! i love this building!! nothing better than a garage that elevates to your floor. this is one of my favorite new buildings.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Joshua...I am fascinated by that sky garage concept. Talk about highway to heaven!

Anonymous said...

I'm just a little old country girl from the Deep South. This is the first I have ever heard of a car elevator. I guess now Keith can do all the maintenance on his car himself! Beautiful place to live if you don't like to cut grass. Seriously, this place is fantastic. Always liked Miz Kidman. Without the control freak husband she used to have, Nichole seems she is doing quite nicely.

Anonymous said...

Guess the maid has to walk - there's no room for a 2nd car...

Anonymous said...

kidman was actually born in hawaii and moved to Oz when she was three.

Anonymous said...

Listen, this building is really in the for a very specific breed. Being across from Gagosian and a bunch of other groovy galleries is of little help to most. One long block east will find you a cache of decent restaurants: Red Cat, Bottino, Co et al but few other services. The neighborhood is chock full of night clubs that bring noise, traffic, drunks, drugs, etc. However, it is across the highway from the great Chelsea Piers athletic facilities, in addition to the newly created waterfront park and bike paths. And the next section of the Highline to open will, I believe, be skirting the backside of the building. This is only in minor degree a residential area. Fine for people like Dolce and Gabbana, but hardly the place for a young family to use as a primary residence (though we don't know that this is the case with Nic and Keith).

Anonymous said...

I just like the En-Suite Sky Garage!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbXTDJdojz0

Anonymous said...

Neither of these two is from Australia originally.

In June 1967, Nicole Kidman was born in Hawaii. Keith Urban was born four months later, in New Zealand.

I wish them both the best, but spending nearly $3,100.00 per square foot, for any property, is absurd.

They could have purchased, for example, a Paradise Valley, AZ mansion that's three times the size of this NY place, for 1/3 the price.

Anonymous said...

Um.

One is in Arizona and the other is in New York City.

They're priced completely different for obvious reasons.

Miss Caswell said...

Mama, do you think it's a Hamptons or Hudson get-a-way place next for these two? After all, with the car right there......

Anonymous said...

What a cool concept and easy way to keep a car at-hand, which can be an expensive, inconvenient pain in NYC. With mechanicals for car lifts, ventilators for carbon monoxide, etc., plus all the regular stuff in a building of this type, the annual maintenance must be astronomical. But money's of no object to this crowd, of course. Wow.

Anonymous said...

It's really quite a cozy space, in space. It's basically a two bedroom with an office off the eat in kitchen. I like it.

The oddest thing about it is the location of the 'loggias'. One is off the office/quest room, and the other is off . . . the staircase?? And a loggia has three sides, not two, and traditionally has been a outdoor passageway to various rooms within a house, used to access said rooms without actually having to pass though the house. But whatever. I guess at 10 mil, they can call it what they want.

PS Regarding 76 Crosby. Nicole rented there, never owned. She rented the sixth and half the fifth floor, and Ripa owned the fourth floor and half the fifth. Nicole rented a space originally bought and finished by Boris Becker. It was the most interesting space I have ever seen. Imagine the 5000 sq ft sixth floor as the outside. It has 16' ceilings. Then a house was built within the space, backed up to the interior wall, and elevated several feet. This contained the kitchen. It was HUGE!! It dominated the space, and peered down and out over the rest of the apartment, or 'outside'. A living room was put in the double windowed corner, and the media room was next to it in the single windowed corner. The dining room was set in a niche along the 70' to 80' corridor that lead to the LR and media room, if you chose not to ascend the steps into the kitchen immediately off the elevator. It was the most unusual space you can imagine. He did the same thing downstairs, with windowless bedrooms backed up against the wall, and a family room out on the 'lawn' on the 'outside' space. I don't know if I am describing it well, but he built a two story house, inside a loft, with 'outdoor' spaces. The only bedroom with windows was the one off the kitchen, which looked into the light shaft at the rear of the building. The rest of the bedrooms were little 12'x12' boxes. Very strange, but great for sleeping with NO light or awareness of time. It was amazing space. It was like that when the Ripas bought it. Since the reno took two years, I assume they ripped it out.

Unknown said...

This is something new. Usually mama covers celebrities' cribs, showcasing their majestic interiors with fabulous décor and furniture. However, for this we can see the storage shed for their awesome ride. Perhaps that is the main focal point that they wish to display out to their fans. I think Nicole and Keith would definitely have an amazing house. With Keith's love for country music and Nicole's love for modern and contemporary, I am certain the combination of their tastes for style and concept will be a huge fascination.