New York's First $100 Million Apartment

New York's First $100 Million Apartment is Coming Soon

Countdown to $100M

An annotated history of notable apartment sales in New York City.

1883: $31,680

Units sold at 34 Gramercy Park East (the city’s oldest surviving co-op) usher in the age of apartment living.

1926: $185,000

666 Park Avenue, a palatial maisonette within the marginally less glamorous 660 Park, sells at a record price to Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt II. She never moves in.

1931: $275,000

Decades before its private club is listed for $130 million, River House’s tower triplex sells as the ultra-exclusive property’s crown jewel.

1940: $25,000

After the Depression, a record low is set when the Beresford (211 Central Park West) and its neighbor, the San Remo (145–146 Central Park West), sell for pennies on the dollar (above existing mortgages).

1976: $650,000

The high-rise condo era begins with a sale at the Aristotle Onassis–developed Olympic Tower (641 Fifth Avenue). Past is prologue: Almost 80 percent of its buyers are foreign.

1988: $10,000,000

The first eight-figure sale occurs, at 820 Fifth Avenue, a notoriously prickly co-op. To wit: A later buyer can’t gain entrée despite a phone call to the board from Mayor Bloomberg.

2000: $30,000,000

At 740 Park Avenue (home to the highest concentration of billionaires in the country), financier Stephen Schwarzman shells out for the most expensive co-op in history—for now.

2011: $88,000,000

Young money! Twenty-two-year-old Ekaterina Rybolovleva shatters the city’s most-expensive record by purchasing a penthouse pied-à-terre at 15 Central Park West.

2012: $90,000,000

A 90th-floor penthouse contract at One57 (157 W. 57th St.) sets the new presumptive record. Months later, a second penthouse breaks it, going into contract for $94 million.

2013: $95,000,000

A contract for the penthouse at Harry Macklowe’s 432 Park inches ever closer to the $100 million mark. The race to the top is on.
Sources: Luxury Apartment Houses of Manhattan, by Andrew Alpern; Jonathan Miller. Prices not adjusted for inflation.

http://www.departures.com/articles/new-yorks-first-100-million-apartment-is-coming-soon