Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times The brick-and-limestone Barbizon/63 at 140 East 63rd Street, which towers over its neighbors, has 70 condos; from the 11th floor up, no two are alike.A duplex penthouse distinguished by a pair of romantic Moorish-style arched brick terraces near the top of the Barbizon/63, at 140 East 63rd Street, sold for $10,182,500 and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.
The condominium, PH2, had boomeranged on and off the market since 2007, when its initial asking price was $12.5 million, and despite a brief stint as a $35,000-a-month rental, it has never been lived in. The most recent listing price of the unit, which shares the 17th and 18th floors of the Barbizon with PH1, a similar terraced duplex bought by the Italian jeweler Nicola Bulgari, was $10.75 million.
The 3,252-square-foot residence has four bedrooms, one of them designated as a library, and four and a half marble bathrooms.
The terraces on the 18th floor add 1,000 square feet of outdoor space. Both terraces have sweeping city vistas, and the west-facing one offers views of Central Park sunsets. Interior floors are Bolivian rosewood; the six-foot-high French casement windows are double-paned for soundproofing, and the kitchen is by Valcucine. The monthly carrying charges are $10,055.04.
There are five penthouses at the 23-story Barbizon/63, which underwent a total conversion in 2006 and 2007, yielding 70 apartments but preserving the building’s brick-and-limestone facade and roseate windows at its peak. From the 11th floor to PH5 â€" a duplex on the 22nd and 23rd floors at the pinnacle of the neo-Gothic building â€" no two apartments are alike.
The 1927 building, formerly the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where 9-by-12-foot cubicles were called home by single starlets like Grace Kelly and aspiring writers like Joan Didion, received landmark status last year. Men were not permitted to live at the 700-unit hotel until 1981, and a year later it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Among the on-site amenities are an Equinox gym and spa, the Barbizon’s original swimming pool, and a new SoulCycle studio. Residents of note include the British comedian Ricky Gervais, who bought a unit on the ninth floor in 2008 and another on the 12th floor in 2011. Half the units are pieds-à -terre.
The hotel suffered through several unsuccessful reincarnations, its last as the Melrose Hotel, before BPG Properties, now known as Equus Capital Partners, undertook its conversion to condominiums, hiring the design firm CetraRuddy to provide a chic, European-flavored makeover and high-end finishes.
PH2, which was one of the last of the Barbizon sponsor units (all of the apartments except for two penthouses sold in the initial offering), was sold by Barbizon Hotel Associates to a buyer from San Francisco who used a limited-liability company, Trate East, for the transaction. Danielle Englebardt of Sotheby’s International Realty, who owns a condo in the building, was the listing broker; the buyer was represented by Spencer Means of the Corcoran Group.
Ms. Englebardt said that the penthouse had lingered because it was “overpriced†at $12.5 million, but that when the asking price was ultimately reduced to $10.75 million in January, there was a flurry of interest from Upper East Side penthouse-hunters appreciative of the building’s prewar charm.
Big Ticket includes closed listings from the previous week, ending Wednesday.
