Co-Ops Live: A Penthouse at the Beresford Is Listed at $28 Million

The first Beresford penthouse with Central Park frontage to come on the market in nearly three decades could be the most expensive apartment ever sold at the storied Emery Roth building.Last month, an Indian publishing magnate who requested anonymity listed the nine-room duplex, located on the 21st and 22nd floors at the historic building at 211 Central Park West, for an asking price of $28 million.This listing defies the notion that buyers are no longer interested in uptown pre-war co-ops, real estate insiders say. “People have been saying that co-ops are dead, that condos in Tribeca are what it’s all about, that everybody wants to live in a brand-new, architect-designed building in the former Lower East Side,” the author of “740 Park,” Michael Gross, said. “The fact that somebody is pricing a nine-room penthouse at the Beresford at $28 million is indicative of the fact that, the hype not withstanding, the great buildings in New York remain fantastic investments.”The three-bedroom apartment, which hasn’t been renovated in decades, retains its charm. Its floor-to-ceiling living room windows show the treetops of Central Park through a cast iron terrace with a low parapet. A short step outside offers a view of rosettes up close and the peeping Belvedere Castle from afar. Inside, crown moldings and original — if unpolished — brass hardware abound. “It’s absolutely a historical apartment with breathtaking architectural details,” a senior vice president at Corcoran, Maria Pashby, said.Experts say the property is overpriced because of the lack of outdoor space, the size, and the amount of work required to modernize it. “I’m sure it’s beautiful, but I think it is aggressively priced,” Mr. Gross said.Ms. Pashby is showing the duplex to an exclusive handful of celebrities and financial industry bigwigs. Its buyers will join a building crowded with bold-face names. The legendary writer and editor Helen Gurley Brown and her husband David own the adjacent southeast tower apartment, while retired tennis great John McEnroe lives in the northeast tower. Other residents include the diplomat Richard Holbrooke, artist Susan Beresford, actors Adolph Green, Phyllis Newman, and Betty Compton, and lyricist Sheldon Harnick.“There are so many people there who are household names, and I’m not aware that they’ve ever been crowded,” a Beresford resident and a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Kenneth Bialkin, said. “Jerry Seinfeld is on my elevator a lot, but other than a hello and a smile, I don’t think anybody ever tries to sell him a loaf of bread.”The seller spends his time in a London townhouse and numerous homes in India. He stays at his Beresford penthouse only two weeks a year, Ms. Pashby said, and a 30-something household helper occupies the apartment full-time.Experts say that with limited inventory in the booming high-end luxury market, the Beresford penthouse duplex, which falls in the upper 1% of properties currently being sold, is a rare listing. Its location in a rapidly developing gold coast along Central Park West, which is anchored by architect Robert AM Stern’s 15 Central Park West, has added to its value.“Properties selling on the park command a premium over other apartments in the building,” the president of the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, Jonathan Miller, said. Several years ago, Mr. Miller appraised the northwest tower before Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein had put it on the market for $14.5 million, and ultimately sold it to Coach’s CEO, Lew Frankfort.“The Beresford is considered the top-tier building on Central Park West, commanding among the highest prices per square foot in the market,” Mr. Miller said. Three-bedroom co-ops on Central Park West had an average price of $2,247 a square foot in the second quarter of 2007, an increase of 52.2% from the same time the previous year.A year ago, there were far more listings on the market, especially three- and four-bedroom units, brokers said. Now, there are few comparable listings, including a park-facing duplex on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Brentmore for $24 million, a ten-room maisonette at the San Remo for $10 million, and musician Moby’s $7.5 million Elderado residence with multiple exposures.The last apartment at the Beresford to sell on a high floor with park views and terraces was in 1998, when Mr. Seinfeld purchased an apartment from Isaac Stern and his wife for $4.35 million. The most expensive apartment ever sold at the Beresford was a duplex underneath the south tower, which sold in late 2005 for $25 million — $6 million below its asking price.While Art Deco gems on Central Park West yield considerable clout among Manhattan’s elite, the Beresford, built in 1929 at the tale-end of a building boom, stands alone in its charm because of its frontage on Central Park West and its unobstructed view of the Museum of Natural History and the Rose Planetarium to the south, experts say.“In real estate, there is a saying, ‘Location, location, location,’ and the Beresford has a remarkable location,” Mr. Stern, who praised its dramatic views, setbacks, multiple private entrances, elegant lobby, and large, luxurious apartments, said.“It’s sad that the level of what passes for luxury accommodation today is much lower, with notable exceptions, than what were accepted standards in the late 20s,” Mr. Stern said. “That’s why so many of the buildings of that era are so highly prized.”Despite its opulence and the number of luminaries living there, the horseshoe-shaped building is not stuffy, a Beresford resident who is the architecture critic for the New Yorker, Paul Golderberger, said.“It doesn’t have a feeling of being an enclave of the super rich like some of the Fifth Avenue buildings and that is pleasing,” he said. “It’s the sort of building you can feel comfortable in shorts or blue jeans and no one will look strangely at you. At the end of the day, it’s still the West Side.”

Co-Ops Live: A Penthouse at the Beresford Is Listed at $28 Million

Co-Ops Live: A Penthouse at the Beresford Is Listed at $28 Million

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