A Limestone Mansion on the Upper East Side Sells for $56 Million
A six-story, limestone mansion on the Upper East Side, with a long list of amenities, including a lower-level fitness center with a pool, gym and massage room, finally sold after more than six years on the market and several price cuts.
The building, at 12 East 63rd Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, was purchased by an anonymous buyer for $56 million. This was New York City’s biggest closing in February, and the second highest so far this year, though the sale price fell far short of the $77 million initially sought in November 2015.
In the month’s other prominent closed transactions, Norman Lear, the prolific television writer and producer, and his wife, Lyn Davis Lear, a film producer, sold their apartment at 15 Central Park West. The couple were among the condominium’s first residents.
The president of Columbia University, Lee C. Bollinger, and his wife, Jean Magnano Bollinger, an artist, bought a co-op at the Beresford, also on Central Park West. And several blocks away, on Riverside Drive, the longtime home of the comedy team Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara sold for $1 million over the asking price.
Downtown, Anthony Rapp, who was the lead actor in the Broadway musical “Rent,” found a buyer for his studio loft in NoHo, who also paid above the list price. The Tony Award-winning actor Nathan Lane sold his TriBeCa triplex.
The 63rd Street mansion, bought for $56 million, had undergone extensive renovations by the former owner, Greenwood Properties II L.L.C., after it was acquired in 2010 for $19.7 million.
The house, 25 feet wide, encompasses around 13,000 square feet. It includes seven bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and three powder rooms, along with a media room, library, breakfast room, staff quarters, and a three-story glass atrium. Carrie Chiang of the Corcoran Group represented the sellers, while Matthew Lesser of Leslie J. Garfield brought the buyers, which used the limited liability company 12E63.
The primary bedroom suite takes up the entire top floor and features a fireplace, spalike marble bathroom, an enormous dressing room and a private terrace, one of four in the home. The rooftop space, with areas for dining and lounging, offers views of Midtown Manhattan and nearby Central Park.
On the lower level is a resort-caliber fitness center equipped with a 20-foot lap pool, gym, massage room and steam room. There’s also an entertainment area with a wet bar.
And to get to all these perks is a fancy curved staircase and, fortunately, an elevator.
The Lears sold their apartment at 15 Central Park West through a trust for $17.5 million. They had purchased the unit for $10.2 million in 2008, when the limestone-clad condo at 61st Street first opened. The buyer’s identity was shielded by the limited liability company CL21 Jupiter.
The 38th-floor apartment extends 2,362 square feet and has two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.
Mr. Lear’s long, successful career in television includes the creation of several hit comedies like “All in the Family,” “Maude,” and “Sanford and Son.”
At 211 Central Park West, a.k.a. the Beresford, the Bollingers paid $11.7 million for a co-op apartment with treetop views of the park and beyond. The seller was listed as Irene Frary.
The home has three bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.
The Beresford, which was designed by the architect Emery Roth and erected in the late 1920s, sits on the corner of 81st Street and Central Park West. It’s about a 40-minute walk to Columbia University, where Mr. Bollinger has served as president since 2002.
The longtime home of the comedy duo Stiller and Meara, at 118 Riverside Drive, sold for just under $6 million, which was above the $5 million asking price in July 2021.
Mr. Stiller died in May 2020, five years after the death of Ms. Meara, his wife of 61 years. The couple moved to the Upper West Side apartment house in 1965 when it was still a rental, then bought their unit three years later when the building was converted to a co-op. They raised their two children, the actors Amy and Ben Stiller, there.
In the early 1980s, the couple bought the unit next door and combined the two spaces.
The 3,700-square-foot home has five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, two kitchens, and staff quarters.
Starting in the early 1960s, the Stiller and Meara comedy team was a fixture in nightclubs, on TV variety shows like “The Ed Sullivan Show,” and in commercials. Mr. Stiller also had a recurring role on “Seinfeld” and “The King of Queens” TV series.
The buyers of their apartment were James and Stephanie Nohrnberg.
Mr. Rapp’s NoHo studio, at 1 Bond Street, which was listed for $1.95 million in October 2021, was purchased for $2.05 million.
He bought the loft apartment in 1998 for $375,000, two and a half years after being cast as the original lead in “Rent,” and spent the next several years on renovations.
The L-shaped unit extends 1,250 square feet and includes spaces for lounging and dining, along with a kitchen, bathroom, sleeping area and office space lined with custom shelving.
The apartment is one of 19 units in the building, which was erected in 1877 and used by the American Waltham Watch Company to manufacture watch cases.
Mr. Rapp currently appears on the TV series “Star Trek: Discovery.”
The buyer of his apartment was Jennifer Gatien, a producer and actor.
Mr. Lane got almost $4.3 million for his triplex at 35 North Moore Street, which he had bought in 1999 for nearly $1.7 million. The 2,757-square-foot, loftlike apartment has two bedrooms, three bathrooms and an open space on the main, entertaining floor, where there is a kitchen, dining and living areas, and a home office.
Mr. Lane’s has appeared in film, television, and on Broadway, winning three Tony Awards for his performances in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “The Producers,” and “Angels in America.” He currently appears in the HBO series “The Gilded Age.”
The North Moore condominium, known as the Merchants House, is between Hudson and Varick Streets. The building once served as a warehouse for a refrigeration company.
The buyers were Chris J. Shriver and Ann M. Sardini.
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