‘Developers, faced with stratospheric land prices, forced to leave renters high and dry’–The Real Deal

If you’re planning on “movin’ on up to the Eastside” (or any NYC hood),   to “finally get your piece of the pie” as The Jefferson’s theme song boasted in the 70’s, prepare to hand over a big slice of your net worth and buy instead of rent. Rental vacancies are at their lowest (and most expensive ) levels ever and if last year is any indicators, New York developers just aren’t developing rental properties anymore. Sad and ironic in a town where for the price of a few months rent, anyone could try out their big city dreams.

We know Mayor Mike’s solution: 300 sq. foot ingeniously designed $2,000 a month pre-fab. apts. Not only is depressing down-sizingthis lowering our collective standard of living,  but he’s only building enough “affordable” mini-pads for about 48 people out of a Naked City population of 8 million. You do the math.

The Real Deal reports:

“New York City developers made a madcap dash to secure property sites in 2012, and with prices continually inching upwards, had little option but to build luxury condos, thus leaving renters and those needing affordable housing out in the cold, the New York Times reported.”

“Property owners sold 158 development sites in Manhattan in 2012, an increase of 51 percent from the previous year, according to brokerage Massey Knakal. The total sales volume of those sites was $3.12 billion, representing a 128 percent increase from the previous year. Moreover, 69 sites worth $1.73 billion sold in the fourth quarter alone. Competition for these sites was cutthroat, with as many as 40 developers battling for the right to purchase a single site, Bob Knakal, Massey Knakal’s chairman, told the Times.

To mitigate the risk of buying at such high prices, brokers told the Times that developers were pushed to build high-end condos, or convert existing properties into them. “The fact is, the way the free market is working today, land is just too valuable, so developers can’t afford to do anything but build super luxury product,” Knakal said.

For example, Macklowe Properties is in the process of converting two Upper East Side prewar rental buildings, 150 East 72nd Street and 737 Park Avenue, into luxury condos. “There are very few remaining rental prewar buildings on Park Avenue,” Richard Wallgren, executive vice president for sales and marketing of Macklowe Properties, told the Times in reference to 737 Park Avenue. “So this opportunity to purchase one of those lone buildings was extremely competitive, and we are delighted to be successful in purchasing it.”

Some real estate insiders worry that this trend will lead to a lopsided housing market recovery. “I worry that if this is all we can develop, how deep is that market?” Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, told the Times. He added that the proposal to rezone Midtown East would be essential to alleviate the tightness in the property market.

Knakal said that the push to build high-end wouldn’t solve the problem of providing affordable housing to the large percentage of New Yorkers that need it. “There are so many millions of people that keep the city functioning,” he said. “If you earn $40,000 a year, where do you live?” [NYT] –Hiten Samtani ”

‘I Vant To Be Alone With Your Husband’: NYC Neighbors Greta Garbo And Valentina Schlee’

“Mainbocher unquestionably made the Duchess of Windsor look like a lady; for the same price, I could make her look like a queen.” -Valentina

The 20th Century’s  most successful independent female American couturier (she never did Ready To Wear), Valentina  easily made more money than her male  American competitors , Charles James and Mainbocher but remains largely unknown.  A former dancer , the Russian emigre  brought a theatrical,  body-conscious elegance and modern minimalism to American fashion. Her clients included Kathryn Hepburn and neighbor Greta Garbo, rumored to be her husband George Schlee’s  mistress for two decades–an affair which lasted until his death in 1964.

Valentina, jealously referred to Garbo as “that vampire” or simply “the fifth floor.” Once, when the two women met by chance in the building’s lobby, Valentina shuddered and crossed herself.

Garbo’s 7 room apartment was at 450 East 52nd Street . She paid $38,000 for the flat in 1953.

Will NBC’s Gilded Age New York Drama To Be Written by Downton Abbey Creator Julian Fellowes Also Be A Masterpiece?

A rare example of Manhattan’s opulent Gilded Age  has been sold for a  $42 million. The 15,225 square-foot, seven-floor private home  is a stunning  example of Beaux-Arts architecture. Located at 79th Street and Fifth Avenue on ‘Millionaire’s Row’,  the Sanford White mansion has lavish  period details and includes a full servant’s quarters, living room, dining room, galleries, several bedroom suites, a library, and a massive roof overlooking Central Park.

NBC Signs Creator of ‘Downton Abbey’ for Drama About Gilded Age in New York

I don’t expect to see Danish modern furniture  on the sets of Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes’ new Gilded Age drama for NBC. But I’m not expecting the layers of period

detail the Brits and Masterpiece do so well. HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is a visual feast, but they have Scorsese to nudge them on the finer points.  I’ll stay hopeful. Maybe the Peacock Network really does get Edith Wharton’s New York.

From the New York Times:

By BILL CARTER

Lee Everett/The Mount, via Associated Press Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton Abbey,” this month visited the Mount, in Lenox, Mass., the estate of Edith Wharton, who will surely guide his drama for NBC on the Gilded Age in New York.

“Julian Fellowes, the creator of the British period drama “Downton Abbey,” has concluded a deal to create a new period drama for NBC based on the Gilded Age of New York City, the network announced on Tuesday.

The new television drama will be produced by the NBC Universal television studio.

Caroline Astor, The Queen Of NY Society

John D. Rockefeller and his son JDR, Jr.

John Singer Sargent

In its release, NBC described the series, which will be called “The Gilded Age,” as an “epic tale of the princes of the American Renaissance, and the vast fortunes they made — and spent — in late 19th century New York.”

Mr. Fellowes said in a statement, “This was a vivid time with dizzying, brilliant ascents and calamitous falls, of record-breaking ostentation and savage rivalry; a time when money was king.”

He will continue in his executive producer role on the Emmy-award-winning “Downton Abbey,” which is shown on PBS. The show just announced that a fourth season would go into production.

NBC did not say how soon its show might be on the air, but it comes at the tail end of the traditional development period for the fall television season”

The Real New York City Girls: Monica And Bethenny

One can only imagine what the ultimate survivor/opportunist  Skinnygirl Frankel would have done (Playboy, First Woman Presidency?)  with  the fame cards Monica Lewinsky had been dealt 18 years ago.  A good Jewish girl who unwittingly became the bad girl of the last century, Lewinsky, now 39,  is  pretty, smart and funny. And she now has a $12,000,000 tell-all book deal.

When Newt Gingrich’s crowd shut down the gov. in 1995 , there was no one on the payroll to deliver the White House pizzas at midnight. Enter, Monica Lewinsky trusted 22 year old intern. Add a predatory POTUS with a sex compulsion; nine furtive workplace encounters that were more teenage than actual, consummated big girl sex; a blue dress;  and mean girl confidant Linda Tripp and what you have is/was a scandalous, constitutional mess.

Since then, Mr. And Mrs. Clinton have had their happy ending as has Linda Tripp who is married

The Christmas Sleigh, Website banner for Virginia store run by Linda Tripp and her husband.

Taft White House 1909 Ornament Celebrating Historic First Use of Autos at W.H., $24

and runs a year-round Christmas store in Virginia  selling White House tree ornaments and German decorations.

Monica Lewinsky? Not so much in the Hollywood ending dept–yet. (I have high hopes for the book and her ultimate smart girl/ foolish choices  resilience. Hey, we were all 22 once and few of us had bosses as powerful or seductive as B. C.

Lewinsky’s life been purposefully private and somewhat academic (London School Of Economics,etc ) ,but  as bad luck would have it,  she was snapped on a not very pretty rainy day in New York wearing a puffer coat looking puffy. It’s one one of those moments and pictures you don’t want your ex or ex-rivals  to see. But there it is. We all have them.  And we now have Twitter to send it viral.

Here’s pics of the NYC apt. Bethenny Frankel and Husband Hobby are now fighting over as they divorce. Custody’s an issue as is alimony (for him).

‘Not In My Neighborhood’ : Glitzy Glass Condo Tower Apts. Sell At 40% Discount on Upper East Side

When the developer Aby Rosen tried to build a Norman Foster-designed 30-story elliptical glass tower at 980 Madison Avenue, he butted heads with the author Tom Wolfe,

A glass dagger plunged into the heart of the Upper East Side.”–An UES resident, 2008 

Uptown  boys and girls, (who are likely the parents of loft-dwelling downtown Soho types), just keep rejecting 21st century glitz even if arrives with a rockstar archtectural pedigree.

Proof? Apartments at 1055 Park are selling at 40% below asking prices. And developers are now taking a page from the enormously successful 15  Central Park West Robert Stern/Zeckendorf  playbook and using limestone facades and other traditional flourishes to make even their new buildings look  more old school, old money East Side.

UES buyers are different– seeking  primary residences and proximity to the best schools instead of the flashy pied a terres favored by global billionaire’s with mutli-millions to park in the U.S.

The ongoing  battle over the Parke-Bernet Gallery building, an austere 1950s-era limestone structure on Madison Avenue between 76th and 77th Streets, is a case in point. When the British architect Norman Foster first presented his proposal to erect a 30-story glass tower atop the existing building, many

A year later (2009) the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a modified plan for a smaller tower to be built there, above the Parke-Bernet Galleries building. An official from Mr. Rosen’s company, RFR, said Thursday that the company had no construction plans at the site for the moment.

neighborhood residents were outraged. “A glass dagger plunged into the heart of the Upper East Side,” one said.

Neighborhood resident, author Tom Wolfe testified at a public hearing in 2008 that: “980 Madison is in the heart of the Upper East Side historic district and it does not need this additional structure. I think it is incumbent upon the developers to ask Mr. Foster to roam through the great archives of architectural history, or architectural future, and come up with something that has more meaning with the Upper East Side.”

A year later (2009)  the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a modified plan for a smaller tower to be built there, above the Parke-Bernet Galleries building. An official from Mr. Rosen’s company, RFR, said Thursday that the company had no construction plans at the site for the moment.

Billy Joel And Christie Brinkley, Uptown Girl (VIDEO) 1983:

1055 Park apartments  sold at 40% off asking prices.

New buildings  like 200 East 79th Street use limestone facades and traditional elements.

In condo conversions like Philip House at 141 East 88th Street, developers are riffing on the prewar character of buildings made famous by architects like Emery Roth.

The street-level window grilles at 135 East 79th Street that the architect William Sofield says were made by the manufacturer of the gates at Buckingham Palace.

“

14 ft. Ceilings, 9 Foot Windows And $10,000 A Square Foot: Verizon Landline Deco Tower By Ralph Thomas Walker

Former Telephone Building,
Now Walker Tower, Chelsea

Via Gotham Magazine: “Cass Gilbert has his Woolworth Building, and Daniel Burnham has the Flatiron Building. In New York, the most iconic buildings can be matched to their architects faster than you can say “McKim, Mead & White.” However, every so often one is lost to history—even if he was proclaimed “the architect of the century” in a 1957 article in The New York Times. Such is the case with Ralph Walker. But with the conversion of his West 18th Street Telephone Building, the city is reintroduced to one of its visionaries—and 50 families get to call the reimagined Walker Tower home.

Back in the 1920s, the New York Telephone Company needed to reassure customers that its newfangled technology was here to stay, and it delivered that message through the permanence of architecture. When it came time to construct a new office and switching station in Chelsea, the company turned to Ralph Walker, the man who, years earlier, built the

60 Hudson, Western Union Building by Walker

Barclay-Vesey Building at 140 West Street, considered the first Art Deco skyscraper in the city.The sheer size and scale of the building

Salvation Army Centennial Memorial Temple, 14th Street NYC

Walker (left) and Frank Lyold Wright

allow for the units’ most impressive features: ceilings that reach more than 14 feet (with tilt-and-turn windows more than nine feet tall), a lack of interior load-bearing walls (making for a surprisingly open concept), and terraces made from Walker’s signature setbacks that let lucky homeowners look down (literally) on Manhattan’s most expensive real estate in the West Village and Tribeca.

The building also includes every conceivable modern amenity: heated floors in every room, zoned humidification (good for preserving artwork), and a Crestron home automation system that controls everything from lighting to music with the touch of a tablet. “It’s more state-of-the- art than any building in the city,” Stern attests, “yet it lives in this iconic, prewar building with an architectural pedigree.”

JDS, along with co-developer Property Markets Group, painstakingly restored the building’s façade and expanded the building’s four top floors. Careful to make sure this new space worked with Walker’s original design, the team restored the Art Deco ornament on the lobby entrance—highlighting the same flourishes that greeted phone bill payers at street level

George Eastman Memorial, Kodak Park,
Rochester, NY by Ralph Walker

nearly 100 years ago. “We didn’t introduce any new shapes, and we stayed true to the materials,” Stern explains. “In fact, we’re the first building to use cast bronze in 70 years.” –Gotham Magazine

Read more at http://gotham-magazine.com/living/articles/art-deco-elegance-at-walker-tower#8bikSkdGfL6C6Pfy.99

Wings Of Progress, Times Square Building, Rochester,NY Ralph Thomas Walker

Times Square Building, Rochester, NY Cornerstone laid on October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday

Que Sera, Sera : The Singing Designer , Alber Elbaz, On Buying At The Apthorp

 

There are few rational reasons for buying a multi-million dollar condo at the Apthorp. Landlord feuds, bankruptcies, aging infrastructure, rent regulated apartments that can’t be sold–it’s the stuff that CPA’s hate and artists like Lanvin  Artiistic  Director Alber Elbaz  ignore when they fall in love.

Elbaz. who lives in Paris, bought a one bedroom pied a terre at the 1908 landmarked Pitti Palace look-alike on west 79th in 2011.  Built by an Astor to seduce friends and family out of city mansions into equally opulent apartments  (it worked),  the Downton Abbey-era building is faulty but worth the trouble.

This, from the NY Times in 2011:

“He had seen other places, having decided he wanted to own a pied-à-terre in the city, but there was something “emotional” for him about the Apthorp, he said. As in fashion, beauty in architecture is “an instinct, it’s a feeling,” Mr. Elbaz said. “It’s not a formula. I just went there and there was something about the apartment, the ceilings, the moldings. The whole thing, it was almost majestic.”

. Mr. Elbaz said he had been assured by his lawyer that the investment was sound.”-NY Times

Julian Schnabel: Million Dollar Decorator

Gramercy Park Hotel, New York

Bronze Sleigh Bed by Julian Schnabel For Versace

Palozzo Chupi Lobby

Fireplace, Palozzo Chupi

Gramercy Park Hotel

More Schnabel,  because I can’t get enough of his “wish I were in the land of pasta” style. It’s  Edith Wharton Italian Villa on acid, filtered through the eccentric creativity of one of the living greats. His paintings ain’t so bad, either.

Julian Schnabel And Family: Have More Fun In Bed And The Palazzo Chupi

Sleigh Bed Designed By Julian Schnabel, home of Gianni Versace, 1997

Palozzo Chupi

Olatz Schnabel, PJ Designer

Vito Schnabel

The last Schnabel in the news was handsome 26 year old son Vito who was boy-toying for a while  with Bruce Willis  and Ashton Kutcher’s  ex, Demi Moore. Rumored reason for the split?  He hated the paparazzi .

Meanwhile his A-list artist/architect/furniture /interior  designer/ filmmaker (and now real estate developer)   Dad loves all things Roman, especially his Pink Palace, West 1l th Street  take on a Italian villa. Less Pepto  Bismal Pink than it was (the  building’s exterior reportedly “ran” when it rained) the controversial west village condo has  $750 silk P. J.s and bed linens that cost thousands  to match, courtesy of  one of Schnabel’s ex-wives, Olatz. Like  his pajama clad

Julian Schnabel’s Master Bedroom,
Palazzo Chupi

West Coast counterpart Hugh Hefner, Schnabel proves that rich older guys in  street P.J.s are still catnip for beautiful young women.

http://www.shopolatz.com/

Trophy Town USA: The Year The Billionaires Bought New York, One Biggest-Ticket Apartment At A Time

998 Fifth, $27.2 Million
Originally offered at $45 Million

111 East 70th, $27.2 Million. And if you need to borrow some Grey Poupon from a wealthy neighbor, Woody Allen and The Missus (Soon -Yi Previn) live next door.

15 Central Park West. $23.25 Million
The owners paid $10.8 Million in 2008.

Those with lots of loot to park, are  parking some of it here–as prices and marquee buildings rose to dizzying heights in 2012. The New York Observer reports:

“The beginning of 2012 started with a closing, the most spectacular closing this city had ever seen: Russian fertilizer king Dmitry Rybolovlev spent $88 million on Sandy Weill’s 15 Central Park West penthouse. Of course, the question on the real estate community’s lips back then was what Mr. Rybolovlev’s

15 Central Park West, $88 Million

buy could mean. Was it just a weird one-off—a tycoon trying to hide funds in the midst of a divorce—or something more? Did we dare to dream that it might be the opening salvo in a trophy hunt?

Indeed, it was. In the months that followed, some of the world’s wealthiest individuals made it clear that they had money to burn and wanted to spend it on New York real estate. Super sales bloomed with the spring flowers. Steve Wynn spent $70 million for a 10,882-square-foot penthouse at the Ritz Carlton

Surprise, the buyer of this understated Ritz Carlton apt is from Las Vegas. Steve Wynn paid $70 million.

Penthouse At The Plaza, $25.9 Million, Asking $33.5 Million

. Gary Barnett announced that not one, but two penthouses were in contract for more than $90 million at One57. The penthouse of 18 Gramercy, the Zeckendorfs’ new collaboration with Robert A.M. Stern, in contract for $42 million, is poised to set a new downtown record when it closes.

Co-ops also had a stunning year, setting record highs not once, but twice (for $52.5 million, then six months later for $54 million), proving that the trophy phenomenon wasn’t just running on foreign fuel. Even if co-op prices do continue to lag behind their park-side, board-less brethren. As one broker said of the 730 Park penthouse, which sold for $39 million: “If Russians could have bought the apartment, it would have sold for much, much more.”

And there were more than a few ridiculous overreaches—like the $100 million CitySpire penthouse, which induced more eye-rolling than desire and was promptly followed by three still-on-the-market $95 million listings.

Will the gold rush continue in 2013? Will grotesquely wealthy individuals continue to flood the city, tallying wraparound terraces and wood-burning fireplaces, touting

973 Fifth, Sandford White Gilded Age Mansion. 15,225 square ft, $42 Million

double-height living rooms and converted ballrooms, debating the merits of tony duplexes versus sprawling floor-throughs? No one knows for sure, but Extell, Macklowe and the Zeckendorfs are certainly counting on the dream that if you continue to build ultra-luxurious condos, the billionaires will continue to come.”–NY Observer

Grey Poupon Parody Commercial (VIDEO):