A pristine 12-room sponsor unit at 535 West End Avenue, a 1920 brick building reinvented, expanded and marketed as a luxury destination by the Extell Development Company, sold for $16.295 million and was the most expensive residential sale of the week, according to city records. The 6,637-square-foot residence, No. 16, had an original listing price of $16.9 million.
Besides being one of the largest of the 22 condominiums in the building, No. 16 is the only unit graced with a private 1,814-square-foot wraparound terrace, with views to the north and east. Monthly carrying costs of the six-bedroom, six-and-one-half-bath unit are $8,148. Building amenities include an indoor pool, a gym and a billiards room.
The living room, which has a fireplace, and the master bedroom suite, which offers his and hers bathrooms of Calacatta and Thassos marble, both have access to the terrace. There is a Smallbone kitchen with La Cornue, Miele and Sub-Zero appliances; a staff suite has river views.
The listing brokers were Lisa Lippman and Scott Moore of Brown Harris Stevens. Epo In-Manning of SothebyĆ¢s International Realty represented the buyer. Extell used a limited-liability company, Imico West End, on the city paperwork; the buyer also used a limited-liability company, Toutou Ouest. But according to signatures on the deed, the new owner is David Sekiguchi, a founder of QFR Capital and a former managing director of Deutsche Bank, where he was the global head of emerging markets.
Another high-priced sale this week involved a brick town house at 54 East 64th Street. Marketed as a residence by Dolly Lenz of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, it is best known as the former headquarters of The Observer and is categorized in city records as an office building. It sold for $18 million, which was $10 million below the asking price. The buyer used a limited-liability company, 54 East 64th Street Townhouse, as did the foreign seller, SM 64th Street Holdings, which had paid $20 million for the property in 2011.
Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.