Friday, March 9, 2012

More New York City Floor Plan Porn: Christopher M. Jeffries

SELLER: Christopher M. Jeffries
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $77,500,000 (Yes, puppies, that's correct. It's really listed at $77,500,000)
SIZE: 10,882 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While property gossips around the world were going ape shit yesterday over the official listings and floor plans for late (and famously reclusive) copper heiress Huguette Clark's three sprawling co-operative apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue, real estate developer Christopher M. Jeffries (not entirely) quietly slipped his monumental Manhattan duplex condominium on the market with a positively bone-chilling price tag of $77,500,000.

Mister Jeffries, married for a few years to Princess Yasmin Aga Khan in the early 1990s, founded Millennium Partners in order to—as per Millennium's website—"pioneer a new concept in mixed-use, urban living and entertainment centers." He teamed up with both the Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company to develop luxury projects and has clearly been enormously successful.

Mister Jeffries acquired his humongous urban aerie, according to The New York Times, in 2002 for $20,000,000 and the current asking price makes it the most expensive condominium currently on the open market in New York City. While the stratospheric asking price certainly makes Your Mama gasp, guffaw and stomp our feet with flabbergast, it's probably not so out of the ball park given that Russian bajillionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev recently dropped $88,000,000 on retired financier Sanford 'Sandy' Weill's significantly smaller—but no less jaw dropping—penthouse atop supah-swank 15 Central Park West.

15 Central Park West—it and its sardine-like crush of freakishly rich and powerful residents the juicy subject of Michael Gross' next tome—may get most of the glory in the real estate media but the lesser ballyhooed, comparatively discreet and far more boutique-y dozen-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences on Central Park South ain't exactly real estate chopped liver, children.

StreetEasy shows only five of the lavishly large condos have changed hands in the last five years and Your Mama's rudimentary calculations show a hefty-hefty-hefty five-year average sale price of $24,750,000. The astronomical monthlies provide residents with the 5-star services of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel that occupies the first 20 or so floors of building that stands directly across the street from the southern edge of Central Park.

The 23rd floor unit—9,455 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms—sold in the early days of 2007 for $29,500,000 and carried with it common charges and taxes, as per listing information from the time, that totaled $23,351 per month. As ear-piercingly high as that sounds (and is), it pales in comparison to the super-jumbo $29,651 in taxes and common charges due each month on Mister Jefferies' mcmansion-sized condo. That, children, is a heart-stopping $355,812 a year just to keep your key turning in the lock.


At 10,882 square feet, the vast, u-shaped mansion in the sky encompasses the entire 30th and 31st floors of the polished Art Deco tower with 26 park-facing windows and an 80-foot wide terrace that provide the exact sort of sweeping views over Central Park of which the New York City real estate dreams of the mega-rich are woven.

The main entrance and public rooms on the upper level include a brazenly capacious, nearly thousand square foot living room with mahogany-colored wood floors (that may or may not actually be mahogany), a regimented quintet of arched windows with big park view and terrace access, and a soaring, 15-foot gold-leafed coffered ceiling. There are two fireplaces, one at each end of the nearly 45-foot long room done up in a decidedly traditional, medium-level fussy day-core with lustrous jewel-toned fabrics, glittery crystal chandeliers—probably antiques and more than likely shockingly costly—and a lot of very expensive- and authentic-looking Chinoserie things.

The east wing of the upper level contains an intimately-scaled media room with park view and built-in entertainment cabinet as well as a "display room" for displaying museum quality trinkets and tchotchke, and a nearly 500-square foot library with built-in book cases and open city views to the south. Deep walk-in closets and storage areas plus a wonderfully private half bathroom complete the wing.

The upper level's west wing stretches back from the foyer and includes an airy formal dining room with eight windows on three sides, a fireplace on the fourth wall, and direct access to a fairly narrow west facing terrace with city and oblique park views. The adjacent, almost 35-foot long, suburban mansion-sized kitchen—no doubt a state-of-the-art culinary tour-de-force—has seven windows with park and city views and an adjoining, compactly cozy breakfast room that opens out to the aforementioned 80-foot wide terrace that runs along the north side of the apartment and practically hangs over Central Park.

Technically, the hulking apartment has four bedrooms but a quick study of the floor plan reveals two of them, both with en suite facilities, are quite small and tucked less than optimally into the back of the condo's lower level, opposite the bedroom-sized laundry room. A third, much more amply proportioned guest bedroom just off the lower level foyer/sitting room has direct park views and an attached bathroom but does not have—as far as we can see from per the floor plan—a closet.

The (possible) lack of closet space in the guest bedroom is more than made up for in the approximately 3,000 square foot master suite that consumes the entire east wing of the duplex's lower level and includes a 25-foot long entry gallery, a behemoth bedroom with fireplace and panoramic city and park views, his and her (park view) bathrooms and his and her custom-fitted dressing rooms.

His dressing room has a separate walk-in closet and direct park view and her 800 (or so) square foot, multi-room boo-dwar features a wee fitness room, a colossal, custom fitted dressing room with all kinds of built-in nooks and crannies for shoes, handbags and what-have-yous, and at the very rear of the exceptionally spacious space, a closet-lined sitting room with built in desk and open city views to the south.

Your Mama might suggest the next owner drop in an essentially hidden and tightly coiled staircase in the over-sized storage closet off the upper level's east wing corridor that directly connects to the lady's dressing room on the lower level.

The gigantic duplex, as it turns out, is not the only unit at the Ritz-Carlton Residences on Central Park South Mister Jeffries has owned. Our research turned up some 411 that clearly indicates the real estate tycoon purchased the 5,954 square foot, full floor simplex unit directly below his 30th and 31st floor duplex in December 2005 for $16,292,000 that he turned around and sold in July 2008 for $28,500,000. Taxes and common charges totaled $17,740 at that time of the 2008 sale.

The 29th floor sprawler, according to listing information from the time, has 3-4 bedrooms—including an approx. 1,500 square foot master suite, a total of 4 bathrooms, and 3 terraces—two that directly face Central Park. The buyer was hedge fund honcho Scott Bommer—a man well-known by New York real estateophiles for his exorbitantly high-priced real estate purchases—who re-sold the property in August 2011 for $30,000,000 to mysterious corporate entity with a Miami, FL address.

Like many wealthy Manhattanites, Mister Jeffries also owns a substantial estate in the Hamptons. Property records show since at least the late 1990s he's owned a fully-landscaped 5.5 acre spread directly across the street from Rick and Kathy Hilton's Hamptons hideaway in the exclusive (but not oceanfront) Fordune enclave. The Suffolk County Tax Man confirms for Your Mama that Mister Jeffries is a bit of a real estate size queen: the main house of his Southampton spread measures  a very considerable 14,685 square feet with 9 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms. The property, gated and entirely tree-ringed for privacy, includes additional living space that adjoins the detached three-bay garage, a party-sized motor court, tennis court with viewing pavilion, and swimming pool complex with spa, extensive sunbathing terraces, and poolside cabana.

This is not, it may or may not surprise the children to learn, the first mansion in Fordune Mister Jeffries has owned. In early 2000 he sold a smaller estate next door to his current house that public property records reveal spreads out over 3.13 acres and includes a 7,037 square foot mansion, tennis court, and swimming pool.

interior and view photos and floor plan (NYC): Brown Harris Stevens
aerial image: Bing

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

So where do the "help" sleep?

Anonymous said...

phhew...between Hugett's place and this one, I gotta go lie down.

Anonymous said...

12:45. Maybe "help" doesn't sleep in, or maybe Mr. Jeffries doesn't have overnight guests, and the "help" sleeps in one or both of those tiny bedrooms on the lower level.

$77.5M for not one tree, one bush, or a spoonful of real dirt? I just can't imagine anyone having this kind of money.

Anonymous said...

The average nightly rate for an 1,100 sq ft "Premier Park Suite" at this place averages $3,395.00/night (and that includes a telescope, so you can spy on the "little people" who are actually out enjoying NYC rather than camped in a damned over-priced hotel suite). Throw taxes and fees into the equation and say you're at $4K/night. Rent the damned thing for the few weeks you actually want to BE in NYC. Better, start a foundation or business, say it was business and write it off. You and Jeffries are both living in the same hotel and looking at the same park and probably stepping over the same dog poop. Spiritually speaking, you're bonded...for free.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Doug, this price is nothing short of crackhead.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing the buyer (IF he can find one at this price point) will either be a single person or a couple with no live-in children/family members/etc. given the absurd hugeness of the master suite in comparison to the other bedrooms. Either that or there's a remodel in the cards... and if such is the case, they'd have to be insane to pay anywhere near asking.

Anonymous said...

Might the lack of guest bedrooms have something to do with the fact that the apartment is located on top of a luxury hotel? Why waste space on rarely-used guest rooms when you can just book them as needed?

Anonymous said...

I can literally go down to the Caribbean, buy a hotel on the beach for $22 million, keep the top floor for myself and still rent out the rest of the hotel and make money and live on the frikkin beach in the Caribbean.

Why the hell do people pay these prices, seriously?

Anonymous said...

I can understand the big homes in the Hamptons with fresh air, yards, trees, and beaches. I get that, but this place for $77M in the middle of wall to wall people, noise, traffic, and buick buildings? Never. This is just a having to be having kind of place. Why anyone would spend $77M on it even if they had that kind of money is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

All this makes the French socialist candidate, Hollande's, call for a tax of 75% on French incomes over a million Euros an excellent idea for the USA. (I'd make that here on incomes over 2.5 million $). If the French can do it so can we. Please don't tell me it will stifle innovation, or depress the economy, because it won't. What it will do is curb waste of resources on pointlessly lavish real estate and bankster greed. Extreme wealth inequality is what depresses an economy since the rich hoard and save while people lower down spend.

Anonymous said...

And a backlash vs. the super rich seems to be brewing in the UK too.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b81cd874-5cb2-11e1-8f1f-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1od6S0zjN

Anonymous said...

Hey Momma,

Love your blog and figured I would give you a heads up about Miss Spears house in Beverly Hills. You know the one she paid $ 6,750,000. Earlier this week it came back on the market for only $ 2,995,000 and that is not a typo, it's under three million now. Looks like she's trying to truly continue getting her life back on track and moving forward.


Drew

Anonymous said...

Drew,

Click on older entries on the bottom of the page. Mama is way ahead of you.

Anonymous said...

It looks like the Apt The Donald would have if he Melonia was Asian and he allowed her to decorate it. Surely Donalds is worth what?? 3 billion?

Anonymous said...

Excellent idea about the staircase from the 'hers' dressing room to the storage space, Mama. I love the floor plan porn entries - start deciding what would go where.... However, I probably have more common sense than the people who could actually afford to pick this place up for that amount of coinage. Do they even appreciate them, do you think?

Anonymous said...

GOT DAMN!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Doug,
But you're living in a hotel. I travel a LOT and there is a difference between having your own home (in which you can decorate, etc) and living in a hotel. It just doesn't feel the same. This is a HOME (even though it's on the top of a hotel, but still..)

Anonymous said...

You poor people who comment on these matters are so ridiculous. Are you really advising someone to live in a hotel room? This apartment is not a hotel and has it's own private entrance. I've also never seen a 10,000 sq ft hotel room. Why don't YOU live in a motel room in the desert (which it looks like it from your avatar). Living in a motel room is probably less than your mortgage...

Anonymous said...

March 9, 2012 4:21 PM

But you'd have to live in the Caribbean. Poor people, terrible food, no shopping, no entertainment, no glamour. World billionaires by and large do NYC, London and So. France and that's about it. Then take the Gulfstream 550 to quick jaunts in St. Barts! Fabulous! This will obviously sell.

Anonymous said...

It's not about YOU understanding. As someone said this is real estate porn, aka fantasy for people who love looking at high prices real estate. It's getting old how everyone tries to rationalize every super-expensive property mama posts. You will never have the money to buy this let's just look at the pretty pictures and click next. It will sell to a gazilioniare no matter how much you don't "understand". Go look at home in your budget on Zillow.com if these prices offend you. Thanks for the post mama, and this is a gorgeous home.!!!

Scott Disick said...

Why is there only one picture? Come on, $77M and one picture? It looks lovely and the view is pretty but please more pictures. And more bedrooms. I guarantee you that it will sell briskly and to another billionaire Russian. They're buying the entire New York, Paris and London. At least they have good tastes, no better place to be then New York, Paris and London! VIVE LE RICH!! LONG LIVE THE RICH!!!!!

Huguette said...

It's a bit tacky to use such a large proportion of your home as the main bedroom. Very nouveau riche. Large "eat in" kitchens are very middle class as well. This will sell to a Russian. Old money won't bother.

Candy Spelling said...

No better place to live than NYC? Oh my, the children these days.

Someone's getting the wooden spoon tonight...

Anonymous said...

7:53 have you ever been to the Caribbean? I grew up living on the beach in the Caribbean there are a ton of rich and super rich people that live in the Caribbean fyi and there is plenty of shopping and other things to do and the people are actually nice and pleasant to each other.

Also when you can go out and actually spend your days in nice weather at the beach or at your friend's homes you don't have to fill your vacant life by shopping all the time.

Last time I checked there were a crap ton of poor people in the United States and Europe too.

Adele said...

One does have to feel kind of sorry for all these "one percent" folks ... the poor things really don't have a clue what's in store for them. ;P

Anonymous said...

My main beef is that the public rooms don't have much wall space for my expensive oversize paintings ..

Tony Allen said...

The question “do they ever really NEED everything in there?” is playing around in my head. The answer could be ayes or a no, but to us it’s mind boggling. The sheer property and the luxurious stuff blew me away. I agree with the previous commenter here, the rich simply need to stop this attitude. Invest in businesses, build schools, create jobs, etc. – why hoard??

Anonymous said...

Candy Spelling, is that you? You're an old tacky tasteless hag.

Anonymous said...

There is no such thing as "overpriced" if they actually sell. Econ 101. These extremely high end properties are all about location, location, location. This is all about location. And ultra high net worth people are only willing to pay these astronomical prices to live in certain areas. Caribbean makes a nice weekend vacation, but there is a reason why entire Caribbean islands are cheaper than an 7,000 sq ft 88M apt in NYC's 15 Central Park West or a 90M apartment in London's One Hyde Park. Location! Location! Location!. I can't say it enough puppies. Let's face it, these billionaires have been to every corner of the earth and still come back to the same NY, Paris and London. Who blames them. Thanks mama for daily dose of real estate porn.

Anonymous said...

5:49 PM, Do you NEED any car other than a basic Hyundai? Does anyone NEED a 4,000 sq ft house? Do you NEED premium jeans or shoes? It's not about NEEDS its about wants. And having this money gives you access to everything you want. How many trillions have dollars have been poured into Africa and South America? Yet they're still by and large poor crapholes. It doesn't matter how much $$ the rich throw into these money pits, there will always be haves and have nots. What a waste of time, life is short and you only live it once. SPLURGE!!!!

Anonymous said...

god bless the rich. without them, we'd have no fine arts and beautiful buildings and real estate porn