Tommy Hilfiger’s Duplex Sells After 11 Years on the Market

By: Vivian MarinoVIEWED 440 TIMES

Published: 11/1/2019Source: The New York Times

Featuring Elizabeth Sahlman and Liora Yalof's sale at 220 Central Park South:

BIG TICKET

The biggest sales in October, though, were once again at 220 Central Park South, where apartments sold for $61 million and $55.5 million.

The fashion designers Tommy Hilfiger and his wife, Dee Ocleppo, finally sold their domed duplex atop the landmark Plaza Hotel, though it took 11 years and several price reductions for that to happen.

The closing price for their penthouse, on the 18th and 19th floors of the Plaza Residences at 1 Central Park South, was almost $31.3 million, a steep drop from the $80 million they once sought. The buyer was Terry Taylor of Palm Beach, Fla., one of the country’s largest private owners of automobile dealerships.

The sale was among the most expensive transactions in New York City in October. The priciest, though, were at 220 Central Park South. A unit on the 47th floor sold for $61 million, and one on the 45th for roughly $55.5 million. Another, on the 54th floor, was purchased for nearly $38.2 million by Michael and Kimberly Cantanucci, who are also the owners of auto dealerships.

Four smaller apartments at the ultra-pricey Midtown tower also closed, two of which were picked up by the hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, who already owns four full floors in the building. His purchase earlier this year, for nearly $240 million, set a national record.

Throughout October, denizens of the fashion world were involved in several closings. Gilbert W. Harrison, a deal-maker in the retail industry who now runs a consulting firm, and his wife, Shelley D. Harrison, sold their Fifth Avenue co-op to Nathaniel Wertheimer, whose family owns the Chanel fashion house. The estate of Josephine Chaus, a founder of the Chaus clothing brand, sold her Upper East Side townhouse. And the designer Thom Browne and his partner, Andrew Bolton, one of the forces behind the annual Met Gala, bought a townhouse on Sutton Place.

Mr. Hilfiger and Ms. Ocleppo, a former model who has her own fashion line, paid $25.5 million in July 2008 for their Plaza home, a combination of two units. Two months later, apparently looking for a quick flip, they briefly relisted the property for $50 million. The couple later invested another $20 million for renovations and redesigns at the 5,600-square-foot space.

Over the past decade, the penthouse has been on and off the market several times with various brokers. The asking price went as high as $80 million in 2013, and as no takers emerged, was steadily reduced.

The penthouse has four bedrooms and four and a half baths, along with a terrace overlooking Central Park off the spacious master suite on the top floor. There is also a media room, office and library nook within the large living room on the lower level.

The apartment’s elaborate décor features lacquer finishes and an “Eloise”-themed mural in the dome room, designed by the artist Hilary Knight, who illustrated the “Eloise” children’s books. (The book series is about a mischievous girl who lived on the “tippy-top floor” of the Plaza.)

Earlier this year, the Tommy Hilfiger flagship Fifth Avenue store was shuttered, 10 years after it opened.

The month’s biggest sales, at 220 Central Park South, were both 6,591-square-foot, full-floor apartments. Each has five bedrooms and seven and a half baths, according to the listings with the broker Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group. Like many of the units in the building, they also offer stunning Central Park and city vistas.

The identity of the buyer of the 47th floor was shielded by the limited liability company, 47 SPC 1. The buyer of the 45th floor was the CJ220CPS Trust. Public records also showed a $38.15 million mortgage was taken out on that property with Bank of America in Houston, and that it was a second home.

The unit acquired by the Cantanuccis, who run the New Country Motor Car Group, based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., also has park views and loads of space. Their 4,814-square-foot home comes with four bedrooms and four and a half baths, according to the listing.

The couple also gets Mr. Griffin as a neighbor. Their apartment sits just above the four floors — 50th through 53rd — that he owns. Mr. Griffin also bought two adjacent studios on the 20th floor, one for just over $2 million and another for around $1.9 million.

Also sold in October at No. 220 was apartment No. 36B, a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath unit with 3,043 square feet. The price was $21.9 million. The buyer was identified as Stephen C. Park, who made the purchase (and also took out two mortgages) through the limited liability company KPG15A3.

A one-bedroom, one-bath apartment with 503 square feet, No. 18G, sold for $1.8 million. The buyer used the limited liability company 47 SPC 1.

The apartment sold by the Harrisons is at 993 Fifth Avenue, a limestone-clad building designed in the 1930s by Emery Roth, across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It closed at $19 million, which was the city’s most expensive co-op sale for the month.

The couple is not leaving the building: They bought a smaller unit on the second floor for $5.6 million.

The residence they sold takes up the entire 11th floor and contains five bedrooms and six and a half baths, as well as a large formal dining room, library and separate staff quarters. The buyer, Mr. Wertheimer, is the son of Alain Wertheimer, the chairman of Chanel.

Mr. Harrison is the founder and chairman emeritus of Financo, a New York-based investment banking firm that provides services to the retail and merchandising industries. He currently runs the Harrison Group, a financial advisory firm also focused on retail and merchandising.

The month’s second biggest co-op sale, at $12.8 million, was a four-bedroom, five-bath apartment at 110 Central Park South, in Midtown. The buyer was Aleksandra Melnichenko, the wife of the Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko. She already owns a penthouse in the building.

The estate of Ms. Chaus, who died in 2015, sold her red-brick townhouse at 128 East 73rd Street, near Lexington Avenue, for $15 million. She started her clothing brand with her husband, Bernard Chaus, who died in 1991, and they bought the house in 1987.

The buyer was a limited liability company, Triple Y Properties, with ties to the David Yurman jewelry company.

The four-story, neo-Georgian-style house, located in the Lenox Hill neighborhood, has 9,000 square feet of space. There are seven bedrooms and five and a half baths, which includes staff quarters on the first floor. The master suite, on the third floor, features a seating area with a fireplace and a spacious dressing room. On the same level is a paneled library with another fireplace. (There are two other fireplaces: in the living room and in the dining room.) The property also includes a landscaped rear garden.

Mr. Browne and Mr. Bolton are the new owners of 1 Sutton Place, a brick Georgian townhouse overlooking the East River that was built in the 1920s for Anne Harriman Vanderbilt.

The four-story structure has 6,000 square feet, with six bedrooms, six full baths and two half baths, according to the listing with Sotheby’s International Realty. The master suite takes up most of the third floor and features a large dressing area and extra-large bathroom. On the top floor are offices and a terrace room that opens to a sunroom, which offers vistas of the river and the Queensboro Bridge.

The home has six fireplaces, a huge eat-in kitchen and breakfast room, and a dining room that opens to a terrace.

Mr. Browne is the founder and head of design for Thom Browne, which designed the daytime outfit worn by Michelle Obama during the second inauguration of Barack Obama. Mr. Bolton is a curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which is celebrated each year at the Met Gala fund-raiser.

Also last month: Eric Trump, the son of President Donald J. Trump, sold a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment (with a tenant in place) at Trump Parc East, at 100 Central Park South, for $2.4 million. John J. Burns of Cheyenne, Wyo., made the purchase through the limited liability company Art Gardens.

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