Marilyn K. Yee/The New York Times A penthouse near the top of the Trump International Hotel and Tower has views of Central Park, the Hudson River and Columbus Circle.A penthouse near the peak of the Trump International Hotel and Tower with double corner exposures providing “cinematic†views of Central Park and the Hudson River as well as the action at Columbus Circle sold for $21.85 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.
The 4,489-square-foot residence, PH48A, at the shimmering Philip Johnson/Costas Kondylis redesign of the former Gulf and Western Building at 1 Central Park West, has four bedrooms, six baths and a powder room.
The foyer opens onto a corner living room, adjacent to a formal dining room and a library with park views; the apartment also has an eat-in kitchen, a staff suite with a laundry area, and two guest bedrooms with en-suite baths and Hudson River views. The master suite, in the western wing, has a wall of west-facing windows, three walk-in closets and two full baths. It shares the wing with an additional bedroom suite.
The penthouse was apparently part of a 20,000-square-foot triplex of apartments acquired since 1997 by Elizabeth Ross Johnson, an heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. Ms. Johnson, an avid collector of husbands, art and city real estate, including a West Village town house once owned by Meryl Streep and an Upper East Side mansion where Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt had lived, sold the penthouse privately through her personal trust, the Elizabeth Ross Johnson Amended and Restated Trust.
The anonymous buyer used a limited-liability company, Unit 48A CPW. There do not seem to have been any brokers involved in the transaction, according to Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens, who had listed the unit with Pamela D’Arc of Stribling and Associates for $24 million in 2011, at which time the monthly carrying charges were $13,318. Ms. D’Arc confirmed that she did not participate in the sale.
Ms. Johnson had previously opted for a no-broker negotiation in 2011 when she agreed to pay $48 million for the former Vanderbilt mansion at 16 East 69th Street, which was then owned by another heiress and socialite, Sloan Lindemann Barnett, and her husband, Roger Barnett. Presumably cutting out the middleman in real estate trades is a penny-pinching tradition perfected by heiresses.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower, a 1997 conversion, has a private lobby for its condominium units, and the hotel’s amenities, including maid service, room service, a spa and health club, a roof deck, and the celebrated restaurant Jean-Georges, are available to residents.
The week’s second-most-expensive sale involved a very different breed of condominium on the Upper East Side: a triplex plus a roof terrace atop a landmark six-story limestone mansion at 20 East 65th Street. The residence was built in 1880, modified in 1901, and split in half to create a pair of condos in 2006. The most recent asking price for this space, Unit B â€" a 6,500-square-foot ode to whimsical modernity after an internal redesign by Richard Perry and Jonathan Adler â€" was $18,337,500. It sold for $18,237,500. When it was on the market at $19 million in 2011, the monthly carrying charges were listed as $8,107.
The residence, on a prime block off Fifth Avenue, is entered through a Thassos stone lobby and has a “one-of-a-kind†private hydraulic elevator; a doorman/concierge security station was added to the front of the 25-foot-wide mansion when it underwent the conversion to two condo units.
There are five gas fireplaces, pocket doors on the living-room level, a dining room with Bisazza terrazzo flooring, and an open Boffi chef’s kitchen. For fans of suede that doubles as wallpaper, the home office has Ultrasuede walls and a 16-foot-high ceiling.
The master suite has 12-foot ceilings and opens onto a 500-square-foot south-facing terrace. The roof deck has 968 square feet. There is a custom AMX system throughout the unit, which raises artwork to reveal television screens and speakers at the push of a button. That amenity was not available when the mansion was renovated in 1901 to accommodate the taste of Edward Nathan Gibbs, the treasurer of the New York City Life Insurance Company.
The seller, the fashionista Peri Arenas, was represented by Joan Swift of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The buyer used a bland limited-liability moniker, 2065 NY, and Ms. Swift declined to identify the broker who represented the buyer.
Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.
