Big Ticket | Sold for $6.3 Million
45-47 Warren Street
A luminous TriBeCa penthouse at 45-47 Warren Street, acquired in 1999 by Thomas Krens during his provocative tenure as the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, sold for $6.3 million and was the most expensive residential sale of the week, according to city records.
The centerpiece of the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath triplex condominium, which had been listed at $7 million with Amalia Ferrante, a broker at the Corcoran Group, is a 50-foot-wide living room with 22-foot ceilings, dramatic skylights and a wood-burning fireplace. The commodious dining room, also brightened by skylights, was populated by 20 dining room chairs designed by Frank Gehry (Mr. Krens has a fondness for functional artwork), and the studio on the third level is embraced by a 900-square-foot terrace.
The five-story marble-faced, Italianate-style building, built circa 1854 on land leased from Trinity Church, holds just four residential lofts above its commercial storefront. Long before its conversion to multimillion-dollar lofts for discriminating downtown buyers, 45-47 Warren Street began its mercantile life as headquarters for Sutton, Beach & Company, a purveyor of cloth, cashmere and vestments.
Mr. Krens, whose notion of a neat vacation is racing motorcycles across Russia in the company of Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Irons, and whose idea of an edgy museum exhibition was “The Art of the Motorcycle,” paid $2.35 million for the penthouse and briefly listed it for sale for $5.5 million with Ms. Ferrante in the summer of 2005. Rumors regarding his impending exit from the helm of the Guggenheim started then but weren’t confirmed until he stepped aside in 2008. His current Guggenheim role is as a senior adviser for international affairs.
According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Mr. Krens bought the penthouse with the assistance of a $500,000 interest-free loan from the Guggenheim Foundation despite his having already borrowed $1 million a decade earlier to buy a cozy domicile on Fifth Avenue: he convinced the foundation that the penthouse was essential for grand scale, statement-making entertainment of potential museum donors.
Presumably the buyers of the penthouse, Andrew and Allison Isaacs, represented by Richard Orenstein of Halstead Property, also have a knack for hosting parties.
Copyright © 2012 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. Robert Stolarik/The New York Times.