Friday, July 1, 2011

Friday Mish-Mash: Are the Seinfelds Moving on Over to the East Side?

Few modern day celebs are more identified with New York City's Upper West Side than comedian Jerry Seinfeld. On his long-running, financially fruitful and eponymous 1990s sit-com Seinfeld, his "character" Jerry Seinfeld lived in a fairly ordinary one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side.

In real life, Mister Seinfeld also lives in on the Upper West Side, albeit in a far larger apartment in one of the neighborhood's most desirable and delicious apartment buildings. Mister Seinfeld, his wife Jessica and their three youngins currently occupy a high-floor duplex apartment at the hulking, tri-towered Beresford building on the corner of Central Park West and West 81st Street. The Seinfeld's pad formerly belonged to virtuoso violinist Isaac Stern. He also owns a townhouse-type property around the corner from his apartment where he houses (part of) his fleet of Porsches.

Other high-profile residents residents of the mighty Beresford include editrix extraordinaire Helen Gurley Brown who lives in a fab 4-floor penthouse in one of the towers, the dee-voon Diana Ross, mustachioed investigative journalist John Stossel and volatile tennis champ John McEnroe who also lives in a 4-floor tower penthouse. Sublime actress Glenn Close sold her two-terrace pad at the Beresford in August 2010 for $10,200,000.

The Seinfelds–despite their Upper West Side quintessence–appear to have come down with the Itchy Real Estate Foot Syndrome that has created a need for them to peep large and lavish townhomes on the–scandal!–Upper East Side. That's right, kids, it looks like the Seinfelds just might want to jump ship move on over to the Upper East Side.
The comedian and the cook book writer reportedly had a look see at music industry titan Lyor Cohen's spectacular townhouse on East 94th Street, listed last year for $28,000,000 and now priced at $26,000,000.

Listing information states the 25-foot wide house (floor plan above) has a fully restored Cass Gilbert-designed limestone façade, private single-car garage with direct entry, 6 fireplaces and an elevator that services all six floors plus the basement.

There are, by our count, 5 bedroom suites each with private facilities plus a sixth suite–labeled as 'gym' on the floor plan–with private bath and sauna. Three additional powder poopers are conveniently located throughout the lower levels; one off the circular gallery on the ground floor, another off the stair landing on the parlor level and a final one hidden in a bank of closets in the third floor family room.

We'd like to take special note of the ground level eat-in kitchen that opens to a rear garden and includes a walk-in pantry. A dumb waiter opposite the pantry lifts din-din to a butler's pantry one floor above that adjoins the oval formal dining room. That, children, is how it's done right proper by a smart architect.

The sixth floor, given over entirely to the master suite, is generously scaled but features a layout that will surely offend some folks' fine sensibilities and sense of decorum. A semi-public hall–the stair and elevator landing–links the various areas. At one end a door opens into a hall flanked by a pair of large walk-in closets leads to a large bedroom with fireplace. At the other end a small study with built-in cabinetry opens to a private terrace perfect for a pre-coital doobie or a post-coital cigarette. In between the two rooms the bathroom is split into two parts: On one side of the hall a pooper and sink and other the other a long counter with two sinks and a party-sized walk-in shower space. That means, puppies, a pre-shower pee requires a naked dart across the hall to the terlit and another naked dart back to the shower. Not everyone who can afford a 20-plus million dollar townhouse will care to dart around their bedroom like that.
The New York property gossips also snitched this week that the couple toured a six-floor townhouse with elegant limestone façade on East 73rd Street currently listed with a $23,000,000 price tag. The fully renovated five bedroom and 5 full and 2 half bathroom house (floor plan above) has 5 fireplaces, elevator, a full-height basement level outfitted with laundry room and gym, a small garden off the ground floor kitchen for barbecues, a terrace off a fifth floor bedroom and a planted roof terrace. The house is equipped with state-of-the art everything including a water purification system and central stereo system.

We know which one we'd choose. What about the children? Which one make a better house for Mister Seinfeld's family of five?

When not in New York City, the Seinfelds own a 12-acre ocean front estate on fancy-pants Further Lane in East Hampton, NY that he bought from Billy Joel in 2000 for about $32,000,000. The Seinfeld estate includes a sprawling shingled mansion with broad ocean-side terraces, a lap-length swimming pool with adjacent cabana, a private path the water's edge, a football field-sized front lawn and, instead of a de rigueur tennis court, the Seinfelds famously installed a baseball diamond at the front of the property near the entrance gates. A detached residence near the baseball diamond–presumably for staff and/or guests–has it's own swimming pool.

floor plans: Sotheby's International Realty

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

the master bedroom is on the third floor - not the sixth. on the plans shown, I see no reason to be darting through a hallway naked.

Anonymous said...

Whenever I read about people with multiple properties worth ca. 40-50 million toto I also think of the family portrayed recently on 60 Minutes in which the five (or 6?) people.... I don't recall the precise number since the whole thing was so heart wrenching to watch that I didn't stay for the entire episode...who lost their home had to move into a relative's place where they all occupied ONE room. Tells you a lot about American today; the gross inequalities, the greed, the callous indifference to others, the collapse of the American Dream and the tragic loss of connection with what the US used to stand for and mean to so many. From America the Beautiful to America the Ugly. From Democratic America to Plutocratic America.

Anonymous said...

They really need to go to the East 73rd street townhouse.

Tons of people like Carnegie Hill, but East 94th is just a little too far up-town for my comfort level.

Anonymous said...

That is too high a price IMO for basically the end of the UES. Just past 96th is a bunch of housing projects with drug dealing and high crime.

StPaulSnowman said...

I knew you would eventually mention the quite remarkable Cass Gilbert. He is one of Minnesota's two great architects along with his contemporary, Clarence Johnston. The two competed for commissions here in St. Paul and both attended MIT before Gilbert decided to make his name nationally. Johnston stayed home and pretty much dominated the scene here from 1900 to 1930. We are fortunate to have many extant homes designed by both of these great gentlemen. Our Public Television station just finished a documentary on Johnston and there is an excellent program on Cass Gilbert and his work. Each architect are represented by Societies named in
his honor.

StPaulSnowman said...

........Each architect IS represented........ sorry!

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with comment at 1:32.

America has become an ugly country. Its soul is dead and replaced by greed and indifference.

Anonymous said...

I thought diana ross lived at the Sherry Netherland, not the Beresfored.

angie said...

Mama, I can't believe you passed over the Mother Of ALL Pot Racks in the E 94th St townhouse without comment. Lordy.

You've provided a lot to pour over, digest, and savor re: NYC real estate porn today. I haven't made up my mind about which I'd prefer yet, but just coming out of the gate I can tell you that the larger room sizes and impossibly rare NYC garage on E 94th St wins best 1st impression attention. If what 1:42 PM says about crime and drugs just two blocks away is true though, family concerns would take precedence in reaching a decision.

Mama'sBoy said...

I get it, anonymouses, but this blog is not a venue for reflections on "plutocracies" and the like, Okaaaaay?

I would pick the first one, though I know nothing of these "upper" neighborhoods...I always though the whole area was a big yawn! Give me the (old) Bowery, E Village or the Village anyday!

lil' gay boy said...

The 94th Street digs have eminently more provenance & downright classic style than the 73rd Street abode; plus the addition of some cleverly placed light wells that open up a mid-block townhouse with a quirky, yet welcome, sliver of outdoors help reduce that railroad car phenomenon. And, like my beloved Snowman, who could possibly resist a Cass Gilbert creation if the wallet allows...

The usual argument of which neighborhood is more desirable is moot here; we're talking seasoned, if not downright jaded New Yorkers as neighbors in either 'hood would practically guarantee the Seinfeld's will remain not only unmolested but tacitly protected by their new neighbors. "Soup Nazi" is not the only Seinfeld-ism to make its way into the English lexicon.

As for Anons 1:32 & 4:49, no one can argue with the sad fact that such inequalities exist. But I for one firmly believe that it is up to the fortunate individual to stand up & share their wealth if they so chose, and not in a megalithic, over-controlling and interfering government to arbitrarily make & enforce decisions on the seizure, collection, and totally arbitrary redistribution of wealth in this (or any other) country.

Putting such decisions in unpredictable hands is what brought us dangerously close to electing a shrill extremist to being within a very weak heartbeat away from total global meltdown (not to mention making us a laughingstock on the world stage).

There will always be great wealth & great poverty in the world ––– the solution lies in humanity, not legislation.

StPaulSnowman said...

and..........I might add to the LGB wisdom.....in the crucial importance of parenting. If people took the time to teach responsibility and compassion to their children, many of these problems would decrease. You cannot legislate qualities which make people good, responsible citizens. It has to be taught. I think it is OK to aspire to a beautiful, even large, home as long as you don't get there by screwing those around you.

Anonymous said...

I assume that the Seinfeld children must be attending private school on the UES - can't imagine why else they would leave their hood.

@ Lil' Gay Boy: The problems of inequality were caused by legislation, thus, the cure must be found there.
@ the anon's he was replying to: Seinfeld isn't some speculator/hedge hog/thief, the man earned all that money fair & square. Save it for the actual plutocrats and oligarchs.

Lady J

lil' gay boy said...

I know Sunday sermons aren't due until tomorrow, but since Lady J, (who always brings a touch of class with her egalitarian & pithy wit) cared enough to more critically examine the issue, I'd like to take a page from Snowman's book and take it back a step further.

"You cannot legislate qualities which make people good, responsible citizens..." Well said my friend ––– the result of our failure to do so is evidenced by the barbarians that enacted the legislation Lady J so aptly touched upon. The parents who bred such beasts, and the sheeple who voted them in, are a topic for another day and not meant to despoil this lovely summer weekend.

I myself have always been enamored with, and try to practice daily, the idea of Pay It Forward... When the harried mother in front of me at the checkout comes up short, I'll offer to make up the difference (even though I myself am still unemployed), But rather than exchange numbers or instructions about how she might reimburse me, I ask her to remember; the time will come when the shoe is on the other foot ––– do for the next unfortunate soul what I was just able to do for you ––– I ask for no other repayment.

And often gain a friend for life.

So ends the lesson for today. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Your fetid, Ayn Randian pedanticism
cannot cover up your clutching and petty self-justifications, oh little gay one.

"Fortunate" individuals wallow in their class privileges through "charities" that are anyting but....and the word "fortunate" is merely an opaque, generalized term than can be used in the most manipulative of ways to blur the corrupt and feudal structure of a locked-down class system that rewards and amplifies only those whose so-called social conscience merely extends beyond the garden party politesse of Priuses and breast cancer research. There are no Messiahs with 27 toilets and a porte-cachere in this world, darling. Because America, circa 2011, in your estimation, could never be described in such terms as megalithic, over-controlling, extremist, and interfering or enforcing arbitrarily illegal laws for seizure. Please. Now who's being shrill?

Little Miss Smoke and Mirrors said...

I *love* the one on 73rd. BTW, there's a place for sale in the Beresford right now for a cool $29 mil. Is that Jerry's place?

StPaulSnowman said...

Kudos to the parents of LGB........they did it right! What happened at 1:14PM? Some sort of meteor must have hit the world's largest venom bladder. But it is still a beautiful day in this little part of the world........

Anonymous said...

"Jerry, this is the way society functions. Aren't you a part of
society? Because if you don't want to be a part of society, Jerry, why don't you just get in your car and move to the East Side!"
-Cosmo Kramer

Anonymous said...

Who knew Lil' gay boy was a closet log-cabin Republican...total loss of respect

shanooshi said...

I don't care how fabulous it is, elevator or not, I couldn't deal with the vertical 7 floor thing. It's excessive and too much...

Lew Ashby said...

Is this Jerry's?
http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/detail/56-1025436/211-CENTRAL-PARK-WEST-NEW-YORK-NY-10024

lil' gay boy said...

I have been called (and will no doubt continue to be called) every name in the book, from "faggot", "queer", "nelly", "nancy boy" ––– to "pervert", "butt hole pirate", whatever... and taken it all with the grace & style my parents gifted me with.

But never, never, ever, have I been so insulted by the "R" word. I'd sooner be called a dead baby raper than a Republican...

;-)

Eww.

And were she still alive, Ayn Rand would sooner perform an appendectomy on herself with a pair of rusty knitting needles than subscribe to the notion of paying it forward... The key to successfully tossing off a really good throwaway line is to actually know what it means.

We now resume the holiday weekend festivities...Happy Fourth, chillrun!

Anonymous said...

And to reference the phrase from a really awful, early Bush-era Haley Joel Osment film to brandish your tender mercies is just...well, EWW-2-U-2.

It's wondeful to let us know how you've weathered the sticks and stones of your proud-and-out sexuality.

It doesn't make up for the smug.

Panorama Hills Real Estate said...

Happy fourth!

Madam Pince said...

LGB, I consider you my friend, and I know you're not Republican. I'm with you -- I'd rather be called anything else, no matter how scandalous. And I agree with everything you posted.

Anonymous said...

Little Gay Boy...that massive ego of individual will, spewing his fountain head over the collective masses, ramming his trains through the dark tunnels of mediocrity, referencing really bad Haley Joel Osment movies to cow the group thinkers, the sheeple, the Keatings of blog....he is a veritable Galt-Stone, the asses all shrugged off.
We the living look up to his anthemic throw-rug of isolated genius, and know in our hearts, that like Howard Roark himself, he blows.

Anonymous said...

Never been a fan of Seinfeld. I also can't believe he has made this much money out of starring in a sitcom.

If I were him I'd buy both, house the children and nannies in one and live in the other. Children can be such a bore.

Anonymous said...

I am surprised at how harshly some of the commentators are being treated on here. In my book, someone who has made a great deal of money is innocent of wrongdoing until proven guilty.

For a substantial number of commentators, their view seems to be the opposite.

As a non-American, my 'Ellis Island' view of the American dream is of a land of opportunity where a man is not judged by his family background and not restricted by the state and is only limited in his productivity by his own imagination. I admit, some of these standards may have slipped a little - particularly the first - but it is still an excellent country. Far more enterprising, productive and forward-looking than most of the continent the founding fathers abandoned, from which I hail.

I never begrudge self-made people their money. If they have made their fortune in a legitimate way, I don't look on it as 'money that might have been mine' or 'money that should have been mine' or as the fortune maker as some naughty miner who 'got up too early to scrape the gold from the mine.' I simply see them as an enterprising person who used their own intelligence to build a grand life for themselves.
Paupers from the Old World who landed in New York did the same thing. No one can accuse them of having an elite background, fortunate upbringing or 'lucky start' in life. The upswing of America was the upswing of fortunes built on intelligence and hard work - unlike most of the fortunes built in Europe in the preceding centuries.
Seinfeld is a clever businessman as well as a talented comedian, much like the UK's Rowan Atkinson. It might be painful to think of their multi-million dollar cushion; to think they never have to sweat a bill or a credit card charge and it's true, they deserve no tears for the way they live their lives. Many people would happily swap.

However, instead of sitting down and getting on with an idea that might give the dreamer some of that gilded life, some people just bleat for legislation and government control to prevent such wealth from being created. It is an entirely selfish, not a self-less, sentiment. To ask that the power of the land shield you from the enterprise and success of others.

The shame of it is that such success used to inspire fellow Americans; that's why the rest of the world envied you. Not just the wealth you created but that a man could drive by a mansion and, with an optimistic smile, promise himself that one day it would be his.

America was and still is, in my eyes, a great country.

lil' gay boy said...

Anon 7:33, my friend, you reflect the pride & sensibilities of many of my BGD's friends scattered far & wide across the globe. One owns a restaurant off the Piazza San Marco, another writes telenovellas in Mexico, one is a well-respected architect in Barcelona and yet another a clinical director in Bueños Aires.

What they all have in common is, despite careers I would give my eye teeth for, they, to a man, would prefer to do so here in the United States –––– and each in his own way embodies that spirit of entrepreneurship, and the opportunity to endlessly reinvent yourself, that will always make this country great.

And to top it all off, you refreshed my memory with the word "bleat" ––– I was thinking more akin to an insect-like buzzing I sometimes hear when I open the comment window, but bleat is much more evocative & eloquent.

Happy 4th, y'all!

Anonymous said...

My god, 7:33, you sound like a commercial for American Airlines....tell it to the corpse of Lenny Bruce, not ol' Jerry "I Have Fifty Porsches in an Air-Controlled Garage Whilst Homeless, Shoeless Children Wander The Streets of Manhattan" Sienfeld.

And the Fourth isn't even when the damn documents were signed, so there.

boomer said...

does anyone have the floor plans of Helen Gurley Brown's penthouse?

Anonymous said...

oh say can you see
by the dawn's early light
the no-talent hacks
whose possessions were gleaming
the bombs bursting in air doesn't matter the box office share
the masses are too stupid to care
to see that our debt
will be sealing

Mama'sBoy said...

Just remember, ALL YA'LL, that if you expect to be respected in your political (and other) views, you must extend the same "CLASS" to your peers and fellow human beings.
xx
Mama'sBoy

Anonymous said...

Anon 9:50 nailed it.
As for the two places, I like #2 better. #1 is glitzy and desperate looking.

Footie said...

I always Google map the street to see the porperty in full context and poor, poor 73rd street has a HIDEOUS awning to the right of the front door "European Hair Designers" -- I just can't... not for $23M.

Anonymous said...

Entre/>pre/neu>r/ship: The ability to enter ("entre") one's hand into another's unsuspecting pocket with ambitious pretense, and sail away ("ship") with what is not rightfully yours.

Carla said...

The good part about these kind of news is that we find out what the best areas in a city are. If a celebrity goes there, it is because they know it is a good area, with good connection to downtown and almost no traffic. When I had to rent an apartment in buenos aires  because I was travelling there, the first thing I looked was the neighbourhoods where famous Argentineans lived. There is where I ended up renting!