Dealing With the Stars

WAY back when the New York real estate market was strong, a few short months ago, there was a belief in - or at least a fervent hope for - the celebrity premium, the idea that an association between an apartment and a legendary, admired, notorious or simply marketable person, could lead otherwise rational buyers to pay far more per square foot for a property.

 

Now, as the economy stalls, that notion appears to have taken a bullet. Last year, after a renovation and redesign believed to have cost more than $1 million over 18 months, Lenny Kravitz, the singer and songwriter, put his large duplex at 30 Crosby Street in SoHo back on the market.

 

After opening up the layout, and adding chocolate-brown walls and idiosyncratic design details, Mr. Kravitz listed the place at $19.5 million, far more than he had listed it for intermittently several years before. (When not on the market, it was rented out to Nicole Kidman and, later, Denzel Washington.) Mr. Kravitz paid about $7.1 million for the apartment eight years ago.

 

In early October, as the stock market plummeted, he cut his price by $750,000, to $18.75 million, at a still pricey $3,125 a square foot, not counting the 3,000 square feet of outdoor space.

 

"Newly redesigned and renovated with no expense spared to create the most luxurious and important property downtown," says the listing, by Andrea Wohl Lucas, an associate broker at The Corcoran Group.

 

The celebrity appeal may also be lagging at the penthouse at the Palazzo Chupi, a five-unit condominium building at 360 West 11th Street in the West Village, designed by the artist Julian Schnabel. The striking project, a bright pink stucco box with Venetian-style arched windows and balconies built above an old warehouse, is topped by the three-story 3,700-square-foot penthouse with 13-foot ceilings, three bedrooms and balconies and terraces with river views. "Every fixture and detail throughout the mansion has been designed by Mr. Schnabel, resulting in a romantic piece of art in its own right," the listing by Maria Pashby of Corcoran notes.

 

But after going on the market last spring for $32 million, it took price cuts, in stages, to $24 million, with the latest cut in the second week of October, amid the turmoil in the financial markets.

 

Then there was the combined $4.5 million in price cuts in mid-September on two town houses once owned by Andy Warhol (though one, a town house at 57 East 66th Street, last listed by Carol Cohen and Deborah Grubman of Corcoran for $35 million, is now off the market).

 

And in Brooklyn, a three-story former firehouse that was the headquarters for Spike Lee's production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, sustained a 30 percent cut, too. The 25-foot-wide three-story building (with a two-car garage behind oversized iron gates and an automatic firehouse door) was offered as a two-family house at Citi Habitats for $6 million last March. In August, the price was reduced to $5.88 million; in mid-September it was cut to $4 million. The listing by Scott Kriger notes, "Owner will consider renting the apartments as well."

 

Jonathan J. Miller, the president of Miller Samuel Inc., an appraisal company, said he believed celebrity apartments were overrated and rarely commanded higher prices. But, he added, anything to do with celebrity, including the price cuts on celebrity apartments, attracts attention and can help a property sell faster. "Anything to do with celebrity is going to get more eyeballs," he said.