The Most Expensive New York City Homes Sold in June
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New York City’s biggest transactions so far this year closed in June, with an anonymous buyer paying $157.5 million in total for two full floors at the ultraexpensive 220 Central Park South.
The purchaser, whose identity was shielded by the limited liability company Chancery Lane, bought the 60th floor for $82.5 million and the unit above for $75 million, according to city property records, presumably to combine. Both were resales.
Also at the limestone skyscraper, situated near Columbus Circle in Midtown: A sponsor apartment on the entire 67th floor was acquired for $59.5 million, and a half-floor unit on the 36th floor, another resale, sold for $23 million.
All the resales at the nearly sold-out condominium complex — four have closed to date — were bought for more than their original purchase prices, a clear indication that the apartments there can hold their value (and then some), even during a pandemic. (The first resale, in May, sold for 23 percent more.) The same can’t be said for some other high-end buildings, like One57, the glassy-blue high-rise at 157 West 57th Street on billionaires’ row, where units have been selling at deep discounts from the original purchase price.
“It’s likely because of construction quality and proximity directly to Central Park,” said the appraiser Jonathan J. Miller of the resale at 220 Central Park South. “The development is more about Central Park than it is ‘billionaires’ row.’”
Other notable June closings took place downtown. In Greenwich Village, the estate of Bruce Davis, a personal injury lawyer and the TV pitchman for 1-800-LAWYERS, sold his townhouse. And Steve Ells, the founder of Chipotle Mexican Grill, sold his penthouse to the Swiss chef Daniel Humm. In SoHo, the hotelier André Balazs finally found a buyer for his apartment.
On the Upper West Side, the actor and singer Patina Miller and her husband, David Mars, a venture capitalist, bought a brownstone. The actor Cynthia Nixon and her wife, Christine Marinoni, a prominent activist, purchased a townhouse in Kips Bay.
And in another of the month’s over-$50 million transactions, the real estate investor David Levinson and his wife, Simone Levinson, sold their townhouse near Central Park on the Upper East Side.
At 220 Central Park South, each of the three full-floor apartments sold in June encompass 5,935 square feet and feature four bedrooms, five full bathrooms, two powder rooms and two 48-square-foot balconies, according to the latest offering plan. The priciest of these units, No. 60, also came with a 545-square-foot studio on the 18th floor.
The half-floor apartment, extending 2,455 square feet, has two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.
The sellers of the 60th and 61st floors, both using limited liability companies, profited handsomely, property records show, with the lower level closing in April 2020 at $50.9 million and the other upper floor in March 2020 at $51.4 million. The anonymous seller of the 36th-floor unit also saw a gain, having paid $21.9 million for the apartment in October 2019.
The Central Park South condominium is the city’s most expensive residential building, and arguably the world’s most profitable. Sales have topped $2.86 billion as of April 2021, according to the latest financial statement from the developer, Vornado Realty Trust, and 91 percent of the units have been sold. This includes the nation’s highest-priced single residence: four full floors bought by the hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin in early 2019 for nearly $240 million.
On the Upper East Side, the Levinsons sold their townhouse at 11 East 69th St., near Fifth Avenue in the Lenox Hill neighborhood, for $53.5 million. They had purchased the building back in 2004 for $9.5 million from the nonprofit American Friends of the Hebrew University.
The six-story, limestone building, which underwent extensive renovations, was erected in the 1920s and once served as an apartment house. It has around 16,352 square feet of interior space.
The new owner used the entity Acuspi No. 1 Ltd. in the transaction.
The estate of Mr. Davis sold his brick townhouse at 25 West 10th Street, near Fifth Avenue, for $19 million. The five-story, 25-foot-wide Greek Revival building has a classic front stoop and plenty of outdoor space. There’s a roof deck, a 25-by-28-foot rear garden, and terraces on the parlor and fourth floors.
The interior measures 7,457 square feet and includes eight bedrooms, plus an office that could be converted into another bedroom; seven full bathrooms; two powder rooms; and seven fireplaces.
The buyer used the limited liability company La Maison Des Fruits.
Mr. Davis, who died in 2018, had bought the house in 1996 for $1.9 million. It was first listed for $25 million in March 2020.
Around the corner, at 40 Fifth Avenue and 11th Street, the penthouse sold by Mr. Ells, for $14.5 million, was the month’s most expensive co-op transaction. Mr. Ells, who founded Chipotle in 1993 and served as its chief executive until 2017, had paid $11 million for the unit in late 2009.
The penthouse, one of three in the limestone-and-brick apartment house, has four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a wood-burning fireplace.
The new owner, Mr. Humm, the chef, is now several blocks from his restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, by Madison Square Park, which recently reopened with an all-vegan menu.
The apartment sold by Mr. Balazs is on the 10th floor at the New Museum Building, at 158 Mercer Street, between Houston and Prince Streets. (An alternate address is 583 Broadway.) The closing price was nearly $10.4 million.
Mr. Balazs has developed numerous hotels, including the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and the Mercer Hotel in New York. He bought the SoHo home for almost $5.8 million in 2003. The property has been on and off the market since 2006; last year it was listed for as much as $12 million.
The 4,200-square-foot unit contains four bedrooms, one of which is being used as an office and another as a gym; two and a half bathrooms; a great room with a fireplace; and a laundry room. The primary bedroom suite features an enormous dressing room and a separate walk-in closet.
The buyers were listed as David Barry, the president of Ironstate Development, and his wife, Kyra Barry, who served as the team leader for the United States women’s national wrestling team.
Ms. Miller and Mr. Mars bought a brownstone on West 75th Street for $10.5 million. The seller, identified as Amy Diane Connor, made the transaction through a trust; she had listed the home for just under $12 million.
The Renaissance Revival house, 22 feet wide and five stories high, encompasses around 9,800 square feet and has a full, finished basement. There is also ample outdoor space that includes terraces on the rooftop and off the family room on the fourth floor, as well as a rear patio on the ground floor.
The home contains seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms.
Ms. Miller won a Tony Award for best actress in the Broadway musical “Pippin,” and also appeared as Commander Paylor in the “Hunger Games” movies. Mr. Mars is a partner in the venture capital firm White Owl Capital Partners and a founder of Windstream Energy, which specializes in wind power.
Ms. Nixon and Ms. Marinoni paid $4.4 million, the full asking price, for a townhouse on East 32nd Street, between Third and Second Avenues.
The four-story building, which has a total of 3,984 square feet of interior space, is currently divided into three apartments. The owner’s unit on the first two floors has two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms on the parlor level, and at the lower garden level is a bathroom, kitchen, dining room and a large living room with a fireplace that opens to a 49-by-19-foot rear garden.
Each of the other two apartments has two bedrooms and one bathroom.
Ms. Nixon, best known for her role as the lawyer Miranda Hobbes on the “Sex and the City” TV series, had been hoping to move into the New York governor’s mansion in Albany. She lost the Democratic primary to the incumbent Andrew M. Cuomo three years ago. Ms. Marinoni is an activist for L.G.B.T.Q. rights and quality education.
And in end-of-the-month closings, the actor and singer Linda Lavin and her husband, Steve Bakunas, also an actor and a musician, got $1.09 million for their one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath co-op at 200 Central Park South. The couple had paid $949,000 for the unit in 2008.
Ms. Lavin, a Tony Award winner, is best known for her role in the TV sitcom “Alice.”
The buyers were Howard and Irina Smulewitz.
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