Monday, August 20, 2012

Monday Mish Mash: Olivier Sarkozy

Several weeks ago Your Mama discussed a sleek, completely contemporized 8,000-plus square foot townhouse on the Upper (and Far) East Side of New York City formerly owned by famed photographer Richard Avedon and later by French-American banker named Olivier "Oliver" Sarkozy who sold it in January 2012 to Showbiz/media mogul Kevin Wendle for $8,400,000. (Mister Wendle, co-founder of the Fox network, E! Online, CNET and iFilm, quickly flipped the townhouse on the market just over a month ago with a $12,500,000 price tag.)

Now comes word slips down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine via Page Six of the New York Post that Mister Sarkozy—otherwise known as the recently (and contentiously) divorced, 42-year old half-brother of former president of France Nicolas Sarkozy and the current man-beau of pint-sized child star turned mogulette Mary-Kate Olsen—has dropped $6,250,000 to purchase an historic, nearly 150-year old fixer-upper townhouse in the still funky but fully-strollerized East Village neighborhood where Mister Sarkozy, so the scuttlebutt goes, plans to live in May-December sin with 26-year old Miss Olsen.

Listing information shows the 5-story red-brick residence retains many original architectural details, and includes five bedrooms, four bathrooms, more than a dozen closets, eight fireplaces with ornate mantelpieces, a cast-iron Juliet balcony that stretches across the front of the piano nobile, and an English basement that lets out to a terraced garden.

Lucky for Miss Olsen's equally tiny and prodigiously wealthy twin sister Ashley, the townhouse immediately next door is—or, until recently, was—also on the market so, should they choose, the not-quite-identical twins could live in nearly identical side-by-side townhouses. Don't laugh, children, stranger things have happened in the sometimes mystifying world of celebrity real estate.

listing photos and floor plan: Rubicon Property (via StreetEasy)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dont laugh Mama?? This is so VERY MARY KATE. Put that in youtube children if you also want to laugh your skinny buts off.

Anonymous said...

momma, Pierre is 26 years old....

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/07/nicolas-sarkozy-son-photos-pierre-mr-porter

Anonymous said...

So narrow I'd feel as if I were living in a sandwich.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I give up. What's an English basement?

Anonymous said...

An English basement is an apartment on the lowest floor of a building, generally a townhouse or brownstone, which is partially below and partially above ground level and which has its own separate entrance from the rest of the building. English basements are often rented out separately from the main dwelling, either by a single landlord who owns both portions of the building or by a tenant of the building who sub-lets the English basement. English basements are most common in larger, older cities like London, New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. In other cities, such as Chicago and San Francisco, this space is referred to as a "garden apartment".[citation needed]
The phrase "English basement" is an Americanism. In the United Kingdom, this style of apartment is known as a "garden flat". The origin of the term "English basement" appears to be recent, having occurred with the recent gentrification of many older neighborhoods in the inner cities. It appears that realtors and upper middle class professionals feel uneasy about having to admit that living space exists in the basement of a building - formerly space occupied by a kitchen, the servant's dining room, and wood storage, and perhaps, in the recent past, working class tenants - so they have attempted to give the lower level legitimacy by calling it an "English basement". Some people refer to it as the "garden level". Building codes in most cities betray both phrases, stating that any floor partly below curb level is simply a "basement" and a floor more than 50% below curb level is a "cellar".[citation needed]

BillinMI said...

She's not dating Pierre, she's dating Oliver, who is 42!

Anonymous said...

I don't seem to see a kitchen or dining room, except mention of the basement kitchenette. No wonder the Olsen girl is so thin.

GiltEdgeGirl said...

Oh, Mama! Those two are just gross!
I was also wondering where the real kitchen and dining room were.
Thanks for the peep!