Thursday, July 3, 2008

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

For quite some time now there have been all manner of whispers, rumors and salacious gossip sweeping up and down Fifth Avenue about financially beleaguered socialite Veronica Hearst selling off the palatial Renzo Mongiardino designed digs at 4 East 66th Street that she reportedly shares with her super social daughter Fabiola Beracasa.

Back in mid-April Your Mama heard from sources Yelena Yaksitup and Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw who whispered in our big ear that the full floor co-operative apartment had been quietly sold.

Just a week later, celebrity real estate boy wonder Max Abelson at the NY Observer followed up with a report that included high-larious quotes from a well connected female resident of the Widow Hearst's swanky building who confirmed that the unit had indeed been sold but that she was unaware of the identity of the buyer. Your Mama didn't believe the ladee for as far as we would be able to throw her, but we certainly understand why she clammed up.

And then yesterday, like manna from heaven, we got the dishy dénouement from Braden Keil at the NY Post who gleefully revealed that Miz Hearst sold her lavish 6th floor residence for $36,500,000. The 7,200 (approx.) square foot apartment includes 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, at least four fireplaces and a master bedroom with a huge dressing room, where Your Mama imagines the notorious clothes horse donned all her extravagantly priced couture finery. The sale is said to have include an 800 square foot staff apartment on another floor.

Thanks to another friendly informant we'll call Helpful Henry Your Mama was directed to recent property records which reveal that the new owners are thirty something year old hedge hog Charles (Chase) P. Coleman III and his lovely young finance heiress wifey Stephanie, who until she got married in 2005 did a little PR work for Upper East Side fashion goddess Vera Wang. Back when Mrs. Coleman (nee Ercklentz) was young(er) and single, she appeared in Band-Aid heir Jamie Johnson's documentary Born Rich in which she dropped revealing and bewildering bon mots like, "I love purses. They are so easy to buy. I have shelves and shelves of them...It's not a big deal. I want a Gucci purse, I buy it...I would have to marry within my [social group], because I couldn't have a husband who would freak out if I bought a $600 Gucci purse." Forget about a damn $600 Gucci purse, behawtcha could just buy Gucci now.

Anyhoo, all this Manhattan real estate wheeling and dealing comes on the Christian Louboutin heels of Miz Hearst losing her massive Manalapan mansion in a public foreclosure auction that brought in $22,000,000, a huge sum of money by anyone's standards, but far less than what was hoped for and waaaay less than Miz Hearst owed her primary lender New Stream Capital. Hopefully with the sale of her fancy Fifth Avenue crib, Miss Missy Socialite can pay off New Stream and move on to something more modest and manageable at The Sherry or on the Left Bank.

As far as we know Miz Hearst continues to own a 45 acre estate up in natty and nabobish New Castle, NY so no one need worry about the poor dear going homeless. But the real question now is, "Where oh where has Veronica Hearst gone?" Is she hiding out in New Castle? Couch surfing for the summer in the Hamptons? Or, as Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw suggested, did she whip out her well stamped passport, hire a plane and head some place South American?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

She's probably hiding from everyone now that the truth about her blowing through $40 million in an effort to keep up appearances and land a new husband makes her look even more plastic than her face does - not an easy feat, and not a shred of sympathy for her or anyone living in that rarified atmosphere of egotistical shallowness.

StPaulSnowman said...

My best guess is that she is in France to wet nurse for Angelina and the upcoming spawn. It has been very hot in New York and she probably didn't want to hang around and see her old place remuddled.

lil' gay boy said...

My guess is she can't afford to let the New York heat melt her newest face . . . although I doubt she's holed up in the Hamptons, clipping coupons and making night raids at an East End Costco, the widder Hearst does need to tighten her Balenciaga belt a notch or two.

Forgive me a frisson of pleasure to see how far the the vulgar woman has fallen - it's a middle class thing.

Anonymous said...

Poor dear had a little trouble. Be kind, didn't your mama teach you no manners? She's relaxing on the beach in Punte Del Este, Uruguay.

lil' gay boy said...

Ah, the Hamptons of the South - no Costco, but a decidedly economic town market, doncha know . . .

Jimmy said...

Well the mega mansion in Florida has been sold to Franklin L. Haney for 23.5 megabucks. Haney is not a celebrity unless you count having mucho Mega Money.

Mike Cook said...

Having to leave a full floor co-op on the Upper East Side is akin to leprosy in New York City. It's not pretty. She's a pariah.

She won't darken the doorstep of Michaels'anytime soon, of that you can be most certain.

What kind of a fucking ding-dong can't keep tabs on that kind of money? Well, perhaps she's too soused.

I don't feel sorry for her, but I do pity her. The social swim in Manhattan is no place for losers.

StPaulSnowman said...

As a midwesterner, I am fascinated by the whole "Manhattan Society" thing. Are there actually still outsiders in New York whose big goal is to be part of this group? I understanding longing to belong back in the Golden Age when they gave great parties and were really interested in art and truly interesting family scandals, suicides, and murders But these people......all dressed up and lousy dancers. I just don't understand the appeal...your major power being able to blackball someone from an apartment building. Of course, maybe they are so exclusive that the rest of the world simply doesn't know about how wonderful they are.....somehow I think not.

Anonymous said...

There is a difference between the people who get photographed at parties for society websites and the real article. Someone who is trying to get attention as a "socialite" isn't actually going to be in the very top echelon of Manhattan society.

Anonymous said...

Bentley, you nailed it.

Veronica is undoubtedly a pariah in NYC circles. She's 'over' and she knows it.

Also, I would hazard a guess that the staff at Michael's has opened up a bottle of champagne, she'll likely never be back!

Mike Cook said...

St. Paul - Don't be fascinated. It's lunacy.

Anon 6:58 is right. You can be photographed by the NYSD nightly if you so choose, but there's a desperation similar to the fading starlet who knows her time is almost up.

Most often it's for a good cause, mind you, but it's also a hampster wheel of the same people, the same vapid conversations, all dolled up and no place to go.

It's not fun.

But that's just me.

Alessandra said...

I pity her too. She cared deeply about her place in society and had she managed her finances a little more carefully, she wouldn't be in this mess. That said, I can't feel sorry for someone who had so much and didn't earn it and who was still incapable maintaining it.

lil' gay boy said...

She reminds me of Ann Woodward, so bitingly speared by Dominick Dunne in The Two Mrs. Grenvilles.

A ruthless social climber, who blasted Billy's head off with a shotgun, she was never truly accepted by society and ended her days in suicidal obscurity.

Anonymous said...

http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/socialdiary/2005/01_25_05/socialdiary01_25_05.php

luke220 said...

Veronica is no Ann Woodward. She spends a lot of money but was born an aristocrat and always traveled in the highest social circles.

It is totally irrelevant that Ann Woodward shot and killed her husband. I certainly hope that you are not implying that Veronica killed Randy.

And are you privy to some inside information that Veronica is now suicidal? Maybe now she will simply reorder some priorities but I'm sure that she'll do quite well for herself.

StPaulSnowman said...

As someone who has enjoyed the Dunne novels, I think LGB was pretty insightful in the comparison. I didn't infer that Ms. Hearst was either a murderess or suicidal.......only that she inhabits a society world with all the wealth, perversion, jealousy and self-absorbtion which Dunne so deliciously describes.

luke220 said...

I think the story is more Tom Wolfe than Dominic Dunne. Whatever.