Google Maps / jbach via Wikimedia Commons
For decades, one of the most recognizable couples in American television kept a quiet perch above Central Park — and now, two years after the host’s death, that home has changed hands in a deal that ranks among the biggest of its kind in the city this year.
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The duplex penthouse at 875 Fifth Avenue (between 68th and 69th streets) sold for $33.5 million, with a trust connected to the late Phil Donahue and his wife, actress Marlo Thomas, on the selling side. The transaction appears to have been arranged off-market, and the buyer kept a low profile too: their identity was shielded behind a trust.That price tag is enough to make it the second most expensive co-op closing recorded in New York City so far in 2026. The only deal ahead of it was hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s $38 million purchase of a penthouse duplex at 740 Park Avenue, which closed in April through a shell company before his name surfaced a week later at the building sometimes called the city’s “richest.” The Donahue figures were first reported by The Real Deal.
The 875 Fifth Avenue building carries its own pedigree. Completed in 1941, it counts among the Manhattan co-ops designed by prewar architect Emery Roth, whose résumé also includes the twin-towered San Remo and the Beresford across the park on Central Park West.
Donahue built the daytime talk show that bore his name into an institution, hosting it from 1967 until 1996, and he died in 2024 at 88. Thomas, also 88, became a household name as the star of the 1960s sitcom “That Girl.” The couple’s real estate footprint stretched beyond Manhattan: a waterfront estate they assembled in Westport, Connecticut, sold last year for a record $45 million. They had built a 10,000-square-foot, shingle-style home on the Long Island Sound in 2007, sold it in 2013, and the parcel — with 400 feet of water frontage — was later combined with a neighboring lot for that record sale.
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The closing lands as Manhattan’s co-op market shows unusual strength. The average co-op sale price climbed 8 percent between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the start of this year, reaching just above $1.4 million, according to appraiser Jonathan Miller. And in a notable shift last week, co-ops outpaced condos among signed contracts for homes asking more than $4 million — 12 deals to 10, the first time that’s happened since late September 2022, per Compass.Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
