Jeffrey Zucker, the president of CNN who previously headed NBCUniversal, has closed on the sale of his sprawling Upper East Side apartment.
He and his wife, Caryn Zucker, sold the third-floor unit at 32 East 64th Street to Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund pioneer and philanthropist, and his wife, Judith Steinhardt, for almost $15.4 million. This was the highest price for a co-op and among the most expensive transactions in New York City in February.
A West Chelsea townhouse that appeared in NBC’s popular “Seinfeld” TV sitcom — it was Elaine Benes’s home, at least from the outside — also sold last month for $6.8 million.
February’s priciest closing took place in the West Village, where a brand-new duplex penthouse at 90 Morton Street, a boutique condominium conversion, was acquired for just under $25 million.
In other notable February closings, the real estate developer William L. Zeckendorf bought an Upper East Side apartment. (And, no, it wasn’t in one of his luxury high-rises.) Also, the estates of Mark Butler, a founder of the discount chain Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, and James N. Goodman, a noted art dealer, sold their apartments.
The Zuckers’ co-op that sold for $15.4 million, on 64th Street and Madison Avenue, a.k.a. the Verona, has five bedrooms and four and a half baths, along with a library, den/playroom and laundry area, according to the listing with Warburg Realty. The home, which is just a block from Central Park, also has three working fireplaces.
The couple paid $12.3 million for the unit in 2007, after which they commenced a top-to-bottom renovation, adding various finishes such as lacquer to the walls in the library and silk velvet treatments in the dining room. They initially listed the apartment for $17.5 million last year.
The new owner, Mr. Steinhardt, ran a hedge fund bearing his name until the mid-1990s and has donated millions of dollars to city institutions, among them, New York University. In 2019 he retired as the chairman of WisdomTree Investments.
The apartment’s closing coincided with Mr. Zucker’s recent announcement that he planned to step down from his job running CNN at the end of the year. While he was at NBC, he introduced programs like “Fear Factor,” and he gave Donald J. Trump his start in reality TV with the show “The Apprentice.”
The month’s biggest sale, a sponsor penthouse at 90 Morton Street selling for nearly $25 million, sits on the 11th and 12th floors of the condo building, a former printing warehouse erected in the early 1900s.
The loftlike apartment extends 5,254 square feet, with five bedrooms and five and a half baths, and includes a library/den and a laundry room, according to the listing with Reuveni Real Estate. The duplex also has two wraparound terraces, totaling 2,029 square feet, that provide scenic views of the Hudson River and Midtown skyline.
The most recent asking price was $33 million; monthly carrying costs are $21,416. The buyer was identified in property records as the Morton Street Revocable Trust.
The 12-story, 35-unit condo, on the corner of Morton and Greenwich Street, offers numerous amenities, including a children’s playroom, a fitness center and a 64-foot salt water pool.
The “Elaine Benes” townhouse at 408 West 20th Street, which sold for $6.8 million, was used for exterior shots in “Seinfeld” back in the 1990s. It is five stories tall and 21.5 feet wide, with classic front steps and a lushly landscaped rear garden.
The house encompasses 4,730 square feet and currently contains six bedrooms, four full baths and two half baths. There is also a recreation room in the finished basement and multiple fireplaces.
The building’s top portion can be rented out as a duplex apartment, but the house can also be “easily restored to a single-family residence,” according to the listing with Sotheby’s International Realty.
The sellers, Harry M. Azorin and Lori J. Monson, purchased the house in 1995; the buyer is Laura Kornhauser, a founder and chief executive of Stratyfy, an analytics platform for the finance industry.
The stately red brick building is part of a row of Greek Revival houses between Ninth and 10th Avenues. Known as “Cushman Row,” they were built by the developer Don Alonzo Cushman in the 1830s.
Mr. Zeckendorf, the developer, paid $11 million for his apartment at 960 Park Avenue, a prewar co-op building at East 82nd Street designed by the architect James E.R. Carpenter.
The spacious unit has six bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms, according to the Douglas Elliman Real Estate listing, as well as a library and a large kitchen with a separate breakfast nook.
Mr. Zeckendorf is a founder and co-chairman of Zeckendorf Development, which has developed numerous residential buildings around the city, including the skyscraper at 520 Park Avenue and 15 Central Park West. He is also a chairman of Terra Holdings, the parent company of the brokerages Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property.
In 2019, he sold a three-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath apartment at 740 Park Avenue, near 71st Street, to the money manager Peter May and his wife, Leni May, for $29.5 million.
Notable estate sales last month included the nearly $10 million purchase of James N. Goodman’s co-op unit on the seventh floor of the San Remo, at 146 Central Park West. Mr. Goodman, a noted art dealer and a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of America, died in September 2019. His apartment has three bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. The buyer was the Stringfield Trust.
The estate of Mr. Butler, a founder and chief executive of Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, which has its headquarters in Harrisburg, Pa., sold his triplex penthouse at 180 Avenue of the Americas, a.k.a. One Vandam, for almost $8.9 million. Kamyar Khajavi was listed as the buyer. Mr. Butler died in December 2019. His 3,400-square foot apartment features four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms, plus 880 square feet of exterior space that includes terraces on the first level and roof.
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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
