If you’re looking to buy or sell in the super prime market, now may be your chance. A string of major townhouse sales on the Upper East Side in the last two months hints that ultra-luxury townhomes may be immune to the real estate market cooling overall.
The most recent sale went for $57 million, according to The Wall Street Journal, and included the furniture. The Real Deal reported the address as 36 East 68th Street (between Madison and Park avenues). The off-market deal for the 22-foot-wide home seems to have netted the seller – an entity connected to Italian organic grocery store executive Felice Lasalvia di Clemente – a profit of roughly $41 million. The entity paid $16 million in 2012, according to the WSJ.
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The buyer, who reportedly works in finance, is from South Africa and conducted the purchase with the help of brokers Ryan Serhant and Loy Carlos almost entirely virtually. The entire transaction, which took almost a year to complete, was almost finalized before the buyer saw the property in person.
According to the WSJ, the property was built in 1879 and given a Neoclassical makeover in the 1930s. It is move-in ready with a recent gut-renovation, and has a private indoor pool, sauna, and “about 9,200 square feet, excluding two floors below street level, with six bedrooms as well as staff rooms.”
Two other luxury townhomes sold in the area last month.
854 Fifth Avenue. Photo by Flickr user Eden, Janine and Jim
A Gilded Age mansion once owned by the Vanderbilt family — 854 Fifth Avenue, between 66th and 67th streets — sold for $50 million to “a London-based businessman who plans to use it as a pied-à-terre.” Built in 1905 by broker Robert Livingston Beeckman for $60k, Yugoslavia bought it in 1946 and retained ownership as the Permanent Mission of Serbia to the United Nations for the next 76 years. The 32 room, eight bath villa went at full ask and the proceeds will be divided between the countries created after Yugoslavia broke up.
Van Norden Mansion at 8 East 62nd Street. Photo by Tom Miller of Daytonian in Manhattan
The other notable recent super prime sale belongs to real-estate investor Keith Rubenstein. He sold 8 East 62nd Street for nearly $50 million. The Beaux-Arts townhome “spans about 15,000 square feet across six levels and is currently configured with six bedrooms. …The property has luxe features such as handmade marquetry floors, a billiards room with walls upholstered in red Hermès leather, and a smoking room equipped with a ventilation system. The home also includes a wine cellar, a gym and a spa area with a sauna, plunge pool and massage room. A garden on the property is about 2,500 square feet,” according to the WSJ.
