The Appraisal: 2 Manhattan Aeries With Hearst’s Lasting Imprint Are for Sale

A master bedroom in the penthouse in the Clarendon at 137 Riverside Drive, once owned by William Randolph Hearst. After coming on the market a year ago for $38 million, the asking price is now a more modest $24 million. Credit Pablo Enriquez for The New York Times 

A great room in the penthouse. In 1907, the Hearst family took over the top three floors of the Clarendon, occupying some 30 rooms after the 12-story building opened.

Another Hearst property, at 91 Central Park West, is also on the market. The 4,000-square-foot home looks out on the treetops of Central Park.

Carvings above a fireplace in a living room at 91 Central Park West. Some of the ancient panels in the home have been inlaid with carvings of contemporary landmarks.

A view of the city is framed by stained glass from the 15th century.

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While they were walking through Riverside Park in Manhattan on a sunny day in the 1980s, Jayne Bentzen’s friend stopped her and pointed skyward. A giant copper mansard, three stories high and half a football field long, loomed over the corner of 86th Street and the park. That used to be Marion Davies’s skating rink, Ms. Bentzen was told.

It had played host to politicians and movie stars, even German spies during World War I, as well as the suits of armor their forebears would have worn centuries earlier and tapestries they would have fought over. It seemed dubious, though, that Ms. Davies, the renowned Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl and mistress of William Randolph Hearst, had ever spent much time at the Clarendon, or that any rink ever existed atop 137 Riverside Drive. That was the redoubt of Hearst’s wife, Millicent, who raised five sons among her husband’s exuberant collections and menagerie of lieutenants, dignitaries and hangers-on, but who could hardly stand his paramour.

With his outsize manner and means, Hearst reshaped journalism and politics, yet the publishing titan’s longest shadow may well fall from the cupolas and spires he erected across the country.

With the regal castle in San Simeon, Calif., the estates in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and the towers across Manhattan — Warwick, Ritz and Hearst, now reinvented — he reshaped the landscape everywhere he went. Now, two of his notable homes, bracketing the Upper West Side between its two parks, are for sale at the same time.

Ms. Bentzen and her husband, Benedict Silverman, live in what remains of the Hearst family’s sprawl at the Clarendon, the building that she marveled at all those years ago. The other is a smaller yet more intact representative at 91 Central Park West, with Giorgio Armani as a neighbor.

Hearst spent a decade making his mark on the city with his newspapers before making his first major real estate acquisition.

In 1907, the Hearst family took over the top three floors of the Clarendon, occupying some 30 rooms after the 12-story building opened. It became as much a headquarters as the newsrooms he dominated, overflowing with people and his vast collection of medieval and Renaissance art and artifacts. His acquisitiveness led to the addition of the mansard in 1914, which had so angered the management, Hearst had to buy the building to realize his vision for it.

Among his visitors around the time was a French publisher, Bolo Pasha. Later revealed to be a turncoat for the Germans, he was known to frequent the Hearst apartment at the same time as the Kaiser’s ambassador. Hearst swore ignorance, a possibility given all the dignitaries coming and going. But the fact that a secret iron bridge had been erected to the roof of a neighboring apartment building only heightened the attacks from rival papers, which claimed that its purpose was to help German spies secret themselves in and out of Hearst’s property. (Hearst’s explanation for the bridge’s use was not much better: to avoid process servers for his many debts.)

The same thing that led Hearst to build the mansard was what drew Mr. Silverman, a finance and real estate mogul, and Ms. Bentzen, a former actress, to what she described as “a giant copper barn.” The space had sat empty since the Hearsts left in 1938, he for California, she for the East Side. A co-op conversion of the Clarendon in 1985 led the sponsors to offer up the abandoned floors.

The raw space was intimidating but also appealing. Mr. Silverman was, like Hearst, a collector of wonders from a bygone era: Art Deco and fin-de-siècle wares and German Expressionist art. The penthouse not only offered expansive Hudson River and city views, but also cavernous ceilings. Those provided Mr. Silverman the clearance needed for some of his towering furniture, like a Majorelle armoire he had never been able to fully assemble for lack of space in previous homes.

The double-height living room, lined with Tiffany lamps, became a hub of parties and fund-raisers, and a Tiffany glass panel and chandelier will remain after the move. A beloved Hector Guimard door — he of the Paris Metro — inspired custom woodwork and hardware throughout the 7,000-square-foot home, which also has almost 10,000 square feet of outdoor terraces where the spies used to alight. After years of enjoyment, it became too much for Mr. Silverman and Ms. Bentzen, who are downsizing.

 “The home is new but like an antique in its own right,” said Fabienne Lecole, a Corcoran broker, who shares the listing with Joy Handler.

Yet even if the home is a work of art, that does not mean it is priceless. After coming on the market a year ago for $38 million, the asking price is now a more modest $24 million.

For something more in line with Hearst’s own tastes, there is the penthouse at 91 Central Park West. The asking price is $22.75 million, recently reduced from $27.5 million, and it offers baronial fireplaces and leaded windows that look as though they were plundered from monasteries. Some ancient panels have been inlaid with carvings of contemporary landmarks, like Columbus Circle, which Hearst helped transform.

The 4,000-square-foot home, up for sale after the death of owners who lived there for 40 years, has a monastic feel, looking out on the treetops of Central Park. “You can see all the progress taking place in Midtown, but you’re totally removed from it,” said Brian Rice, a Corcoran broker listing the gothic aerie with Douglas Albert.

It is believed the penthouse provided an escape from the glare outside the East Side hotels that Hearst had built to house his paramour, Ms. Davies: the Warwick New York Hotel and the Ritz Tower. Evidence is found in the massive turret capping 91 Central Park West. Therein lies a bar worthy of a tavern on the King’s Road alongside a fireplace carved with the faces of good and evil. Scratched into the blond wood are the initials “M.D.”

Copyright © 2015 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. Alan Chin/The New York Times. 

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