Location: Manhattan
September 1, 2008
Revenge and heartbreak have long been motivating factors for selling a home and building a bigger, better one. When Henry T. Sloane, heir to the W & J Sloane furnishings company, built his first mansion in 1887 on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, he and his wife, Jessie, entertained New York’s elite with lavish parties.
Seventeen years later, their union ended in a bitter divorce with Jessie marrying another man five hours after the decree was issued. Sloane retained the home as well as full custody of their two daughters, who were banned from seeing their mother until they were 21.
While Sloane never remarried, he turned his passion to a new love: a 19,000-square-foot French Gothic–style mansion realized by C.P.H. Gilbert, star-architect of the times. Gilbert built more than 100 large homes in New York, many located on Manhattan’s gold coast—the strip of land that runs between Fifth and Madison avenues between East 62nd and 96th streets. Although many of Gilbert’s limestone masterpieces have since become museums, apartment buildings, or rubble, his signature—which has 11 wood-burning fireplaces, 15 bedrooms, and 17 baths, as well as hand-painted murals and numerous architectural details—built for Sloane in 1905, remains nearly intact and is currently on the market for $64 million (www.brownharrisstevens.com).
Such decadence seems inappropriate with today’s waning economy and sinking housing market, but in Manhattan, the super-high-end luxury segment has kept sales prices on the rise. During the first quarter of 2008, Manhattan posted a 318 percent increase in the number of closings over $10 million compared to the first quarter of 2007, according to a market report by ValuExchange. These high-end closings helped boost the average price for a Manhattan apartment by 47 percent to a record $1.69 million.
Properties such as the Sloane mansion and a Park Avenue carriage house built in 1890 and reinvented in 1976 as an early postmodern design by architect Robert A.M. Stern, currently listed for $33 million, are so rare and unique that buyers are willing to pay a premium for them, says Paula Del Nunzio, senior vice president of Brown Harris Stevens, who represents both listings. "These properties cannot be re-created," she says. "They are rare, beautifully located, and hold their value, even as the stock market jibes around. They have sensibility and a style of construction that no condo can have."
Large historic properties may be rare, but trendy and contemporary new condominium projects are prolific in Manhattan. Overall, the development sector of the real estate market is holding its own—boasting a rise in sales price for all sizes of apartments from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008, with properties in the four-bedroom-plus category posting the highest gains. To distinguish themselves from the crowds, some developers are forging their own paths by sharing a niche for smaller-scale projects that deliver large homes, groundbreaking architectural designs, and amenities that cater to the specific needs of buyers.
Flank (www.flankonline.com), a Manhattan-based residential design and development firm, specializes in small-scale projects with large apartments that bridge the gap between old and new by mixing cutting-edge contemporary style with traditional layouts. At 441 East 57th Street (www.441east57.com), the 15-story structure’s glass and patterned skin facade evokes the look of the brick buildings prominent in the historic Sutton Place neighborhood. Inside, the project offers seven two- to four-bedroom residences (ranging in size from 1,650 to 3,400 square feet), including four duplexes, one triplex, and a penthouse (priced from $2.795 million to $7.1 million), all tended daily by Lindquist Agency’s white-glove home cleaning service.
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