Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times The Pierre Hotel.A luxury co-op with Central Park frontage at the Pierre Hotel, the 1930 white-glove landmark that underwent a $100 million renovation in 2005, sold for $12 million and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records.
The under-the-radar estate sale at 2 East 61st Street involved two longtime residents of the Pierre, Mary R. Cowell Ross, who died in her 24th-floor apartment in February at age 102, and Barbara Digan Zweig, who with her husband, the financial savant Martin Zweig, had bought the 16-room triplex Pierre penthouse in 1999 for $21.5 million, at the time a record. Because of the nature of the sale, very little detail was available on the Ross apartment. The Zweigs’ penthouse went on the market in March at the stratospheric asking price of $125 million, shortly after Mr. Zweig died in February at age 70. His prognosticative powers surfaced in 1987 when he publicly predicted the stock-market crash three days before it happened. Mary Ross, a pioneer among female lawyers, was the 14th president of the New York Women’s Bar Association.
Ms. Zweig, who has a primary residence on Fisher Island in Florida, had not wished to return to the penthouse after her husband’s death but did want to maintain a toehold at the Pierre, a Schultze & Weaver-designed building that the couple had loved. The exclusive co-op tower, where cash-only transactions are the rule, is owned by Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, which provides all residents with five-star hotel amenities at a five-star price; the maintenance for the penthouse is $47,000 per month.
Though that ornate triplex, which dominates Floors 41 through 43, is listed with Elizabeth Sample, Brenda Powers and Samantha Boardman of Sotheby’s International Realty, a Sotheby’s spokesman confirmed that they did not represent Ms. Zweig in her $12 million purchase.
Downtown at TriBeCa’s futuristic V33, the seven-unit stone-and-glass condo built in 2008 on the site of a former parking lot at 33 Vestry Street and Hudson Street, a three-level town house, No. 2, sold for $10.5 million, making it the week’s second-priciest residential transfer. The asking price had been $11 million; the carrying charges are listed as $3,035, and the sale includes a deeded parking space beneath the building.
The 25-foot-wide town house has four bedrooms, four and a half baths and 1,700 square feet of outdoor space divided among terraces and a garden. The living and entertainment areas are brightened by a double-height glass wall that faces south; the flooring is wide-plank Mafi wood, and there is an open Bulthaup chef’s kitchen.
The seller, Charles Dunne, was a principal developer of V33, designed by the Dutch architect Winka Dubbeldam; the buyers are Robert W. Fairbairn, a senior managing director at Black Rock, and Sarah F. Colleypriest. Mr. Dunne was represented by Brett Miles and Susan Green of Town Residential, and the buyers by Danny Davis, also of Town.
Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.
