Thursday, October 6, 2011

Paul Allen Adds NYC Penthouse Pad to Property Portfolio

Last September, on the heels of a $25,000,000 purchase of a modern Malibu beach house, Your Mama discussed at length the many private residences owned and maintained by quirky Microsoft co-founder and multi-billionaire Paul Allen.

Two days ago, world slipped and slid down the New York City real estate gossip grapevine that Mister Allen recently added a $25,000,0000 penthouse to his already palatial pied-a-terre atop the impossibly posh limestone dowager at 4 East 66th Street in New York City.

Since 1996 when he paid around $13,500,000 for it, Mister Allen has owned a sprawling 18-room full-floor spread in the plainly elegant and exceedingly exclusive Fifth Avenue-fronting dowager. We have no idea what sort of monthly maintenance charges Mister Allen pays for his 11th floor co-operative residence in the whitest of white glove buildings but we can tell you that in 2007 a 4 bedroom and 7 bathroom apartment that eventually sold for $29,000,000 carried tummy-twisting monthly charges of $15,416.

Anyhoo, Mister Allen's new penthouse was sold–off-market, natch–by Angela Thompson, the widow of New Zealand businessman Wade F.B. Thompson who, according to the New York Observer, is best known for having overhauled the Airstream trailer company and donated $35,000,000 to help finance a renovation and re-do of the Park Avenue Armory, a swank military facility and social club for the so-called Silk Stocking Regiment turned high-brow arts and cultural center.

Mister Allen's new penthouse pad, set back from the facade and smaller by comparison to the other full-floor residences in the building, is estimated by a real estate professional and "Upper East Side maven A. Laurence Kaiser" to have about seven rooms. A little peeping around on Google Maps and Bing sows the barbell-shaped penthouse has banks of over-sized windows and is almost fully girdled by a wrap around terrace with panoramic Central Park and city views.

Little else is known–or at least so far reported– about the penthouse that Mister Allen will, we presume, combine at significant additional expense with his already vast full-floor pied-a-terre below.

Although the residents of 4 East 66th Street prefer their neighbors keep a low profile when it comes to their real estate affairs, the plum building was much in the news in 2007 and 2008 when luxe-living publishing widow and socialite Veronica Hearst battled to keep her 6th floor residence from slipping into the gaping maw of foreclosure, an almost unheard of event in buildings of this stature.

Miz Hearst's spectacular (and spectacularly opulent) Renzo Mongiardino-designed digs we're finally sold in July 2008 for a knee-buckling $36,500,000 to a 30-something year old hedge hog named Charles "Chase" P. Coleman III and his lovely finance heiress spouse Stephanie who, until she hitched her wagon to Mister Coleman's in 2005, did a little PR work for Vera Wang.

Other high-toned and ridiculously rich residents of the building include big pharma bigwig Howard Soloman, Deutsche Bank director Kevin Parker and his wife Ulla, and hedge fund honcho Daniel Nir and his wfe Jill Braufman who paid $29,000,000 for their 7,000-ish square foot full-floor unit in June 2007. Also in residence Ace Greenberg, former CEO of Bear Stearns, asset management mogul Lew Sanders, Iraqi-born financier and philanthropist Ezra Zilkha and his lady Cecile, and Texas-based oil tycoon Sid Bass and his socially prominent and powerful wife Mercedes.

photo: Scott Bintner for Property Shark

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

The fact that Greenberg can still afford to live there simply underlines how unscathed were the reckless Wall Streeters who brought the economy down in 2008. He held an important position at Bear Stearns, an investment bank that was sold finally for next to nothing (since it was worth next to nothing) to JP Morgan, if memory serves. Shareholders lost big; the public lost big from Wall Street greed but the perpetrators all emerged smiling and still filthy rich, with their palaces intact.

Anonymous said...

Mama and Children:

Number 4 East 66th Street is indeed a magnificent J.R.R.Carpenter building. Most floors contain only one apartment, with enormous three-exposure adjoining libraries and drawing rooms fronting Fifth Avenue, large dining rooms overlooking the side of Temple Emanu-El, several bedrooms and five fireplaces.

Alas, the windowed galleries, measuring 10 feet by 30 feet, are propotionally narrow and therefore permit only constricted accesses into the public rooms.

G'mar chatimah tovah!
Rabbi Hedda LaTess
Trenton NJ

Anonymous said...

kind of off topic. But do you have any clues as to what is happenning with Huguettes clarkes spreads at 905 fifth? The will was never contested and im assuming the nurse who inhereted the bulk of the estate wouldnt live or even be allowed to live there.

Anonymous said...

Ditto anon 3:42 PM.

Lady J

Anonymous said...

What, no floor plan porn for our Friday? Sigh...

Anonymous said...

How much crap does this greedy pig need? Jesus... househere, house there... Someone needs to ES & D!

Anonymous said...

Widda should have held out..he surely would have paid 10M more. He can now combine the two apartments, no? That makes this bigger than the sum of the parts.. And I read that his fortune is half of what it was (still 150Billion) and I can see why given how he spends it.

Anonymous said...

With his health, he lives like everyday could be his last on earth. With the billions he has, this is just pocket-change. Enjoy your life Paul. There will be plenty left over for your foundations and charity.

Anonymous said...

the wall street protestors need to go to this building. would love to see that on tv. how funny would it be... the people who made unseen amounts of money in the stock market collapse are now prisoners in their palaces and can't hide anymore. ha!

nursedeb said...

the apt. maybe beautiful, but that is one butt ugly building.

Anonymous said...

Occupy Wall Street.

Occupy Los Angeles.

Occupy Beverly Hills.

midTN said...

***

You need a brain to occupy your empty skull Anon 9:30.....

***

Anonymous said...

I did some interior work in this building in the late 90s as a young man/asst type thing, and I can attest to its overwhelming opulence. It was the first time I had seen the inner sanctum of extreme wealth-- and tastefully done mind you. It was chilling because the huge apartment was so perfectly elegant, and absolutely barren of human warmth or vitality most would associate with the concept of home. And it's true what the other posters are saying: waste, waste, waste. I remember standing at the window facing 5th Avenue and seeing the homeless plunker about in the jarring cold while the enormous pad sat empty for most of the year. This place I did work in was just one of many residences owned by this guy, who did, in fact, resemble Mr. Drummond on "Diff'rent Strokes."

Anonymous said...

You need a fist to occupy your rear end mid TN

Anonymous said...

PIGGYS, PIGGYS, SEE HOW THEY RUN
BETTER GATHER UP YOUR CHILLIN'
AND BUY A BIG GUN

PITHCFORKS A COMIN'
TORCHES, TOO
IF YOU SAY "LET 'EM EAT CAKE"
THEY'LL BE EATIN' YOU

Anonymous said...

With last week's joint announcement from Sid and Mercedes Bass that they are divorcing, there soon may be another apartment hitting the market here. Or maybe Mercedes will stay put if her payoff allows.

midTN said...

*** 11:37

Yet more poetry from the blog "Occupier"....when he isn't busy fisting....and writing "poetry".

***

Buy An Island said...

A top address for the 1 %, to be sure.