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The New York Times

Big Ticket | Outdoor Living, in NoHo for $23 Million

By: Robin Finn
Published: 12/1/2013Source: The New York Times

A statement-making condominium that monopolizes the eighth floor at 40 Bond Street, the 11-story emerald-green-glass apparition that brought a dash of Oz downtown to NoHo in 2007, sold for $23.5 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.

The most recent asking price was $25 million after a trim from $27 million, and the monthly carrying costs are $14,255. The luxury complex, which was developed by the hotelier Ian Schrager and designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, has 27 apartments and five townhouses at street level. At the ever-luminescent 40 Bond, even the external structural elements are coated with molten glass. (Mr. Schrager kept the 8,500-square-foot triplex penthouse for himself.)

The loft-style 12-room, 5,364-square-foot unit, No. 8A, on a quaint cobblestone and cast-iron block off the Bowery, has four bedrooms, four baths, and a grand 140-foot-long south-facing terrace that runs the length of the residence. Every principal room has access to the terrace, which is 20 feet deep and was designed by the landscape architect Jeff Mendoza to offer total privacy. Inside, the equally striking interiors by David Mann have floor-to-ceiling windows, wide-plank floors, north-and-south exposures, and 11-foot ceilings throughout.

The chef’s kitchen is clad in smoked Austrian oak with glacier-white custom Corian counters and lacquer cabinetry. There are two fireplaces, one in the living room and the other in the elaborate master suite overlooking the terrace. The suite has a windowed dressing room and his-and-hers offices, and its master bath is wrapped in custom Corian in the same pattern used on the unusual 22-foot-high sculptural gate that shields the five townhouse gardens from the street. A separate wing contains the loft’s three other bedrooms, each with an en-suite bath.

The apartment was bought as a sponsor unit for $17.9 million in 2007 by William Kriegel, the energy magnate, motorcycle enthusiast and Montana rancher (he owns a training facility for quarter horses) who is the chairman of the K Road Acquisition Corporation, formerly Sithe Energies. Mr. Kriegel built his fortune in renewable energy companies in his native France before relocating in 1984 to the United States, where he repeated his entrepreneurial success. Before “downsizing” to the Bond Street apartment, he developed and owned the 7,452-square-foot duplex penthouse at 158 Mercer Street, which he sold to the musician Jon Bon Jovi for $27 million in 2007. That penthouse is currently on the market for $39.9 million.

Mr. Kriegel was represented in the sale by Leonard Steinberg and Hervé Senequier of Douglas Elliman Real Estate; the team also handled the negotiations for the anonymous buyer, who used a limited-liability company, MINM. Mr. Steinberg, citing confidentiality agreements, declined to elaborate.

The week’s second-costliest transaction involved a six-story Beaux-Arts limestone townhouse on the Upper East Side that sold for $18.5 million. The 19-room residence at 131 East 64th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues, was built in 1904 by Augustus N. Allen but was recently renovated on both the interior, where the finishes are ultramodern, and the exterior, where a restoration retained front bay windows and the decorative copper anthemion on the roof. The house has northern, southern and eastern exposures; a rooftop gym; a wine cellar; and an indoor pool and spa. In addition to eight bedrooms, it has 11 baths, an elevator, and 1,150 square feet of outdoor space divided among a pair of terraces and a roof garden.

The social spaces, connected by a sweeping staircase, include a music hall, a library and a sitting room, and the ceilings on the parlor floor, home to the dining and living rooms and the kitchen, soar to 12 feet. The fourth-floor master bedroom suite has his-and-her baths and dressing rooms. The upper floors contain four more guest bedrooms with en-suite baths, a playroom, a family room and a staff suite.

Carrie Chiang and Richard Phan of the Corcoran Group represented the seller, David Seldin, a former team president of the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars, who had owned the house since 2004. He used a limited-liability company, 64th Street Associates, with a Florida address, in the sale. The buyer opted for anonymity through a limited-liability company, TH 64. Ms. Chiang declined to comment on the particulars of the sale.

Copyright © 2013 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.

 

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