Thursday, July 3, 2008

UPDATE: Veronica Hearst

For quite some time now there have been all manner of whispers, rumors and salacious gossip sweeping up and down Fifth Avenue about financially beleaguered socialite Veronica Hearst selling off the palatial Renzo Mongiardino designed digs at 4 East 66th Street that she reportedly shares with her super social daughter Fabiola Beracasa.

Back in mid-April Your Mama heard from sources Yelena Yaksitup and Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw who whispered in our big ear that the full floor co-operative apartment had been quietly sold.

Just a week later, celebrity real estate boy wonder Max Abelson at the NY Observer followed up with a report that included high-larious quotes from a well connected female resident of the Widow Hearst's swanky building who confirmed that the unit had indeed been sold but that she was unaware of the identity of the buyer. Your Mama didn't believe the ladee for as far as we would be able to throw her, but we certainly understand why she clammed up.

And then yesterday, like manna from heaven, we got the dishy dénouement from Braden Keil at the NY Post who gleefully revealed that Miz Hearst sold her lavish 6th floor residence for $36,500,000. The 7,200 (approx.) square foot apartment includes 6 bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, at least four fireplaces and a master bedroom with a huge dressing room, where Your Mama imagines the notorious clothes horse donned all her extravagantly priced couture finery. The sale is said to have include an 800 square foot staff apartment on another floor.

Thanks to another friendly informant we'll call Helpful Henry Your Mama was directed to recent property records which reveal that the new owners are thirty something year old hedge hog Charles (Chase) P. Coleman III and his lovely young finance heiress wifey Stephanie, who until she got married in 2005 did a little PR work for Upper East Side fashion goddess Vera Wang. Back when Mrs. Coleman (nee Ercklentz) was young(er) and single, she appeared in Band-Aid heir Jamie Johnson's documentary Born Rich in which she dropped revealing and bewildering bon mots like, "I love purses. They are so easy to buy. I have shelves and shelves of them...It's not a big deal. I want a Gucci purse, I buy it...I would have to marry within my [social group], because I couldn't have a husband who would freak out if I bought a $600 Gucci purse." Forget about a damn $600 Gucci purse, behawtcha could just buy Gucci now.

Anyhoo, all this Manhattan real estate wheeling and dealing comes on the Christian Louboutin heels of Miz Hearst losing her massive Manalapan mansion in a public foreclosure auction that brought in $22,000,000, a huge sum of money by anyone's standards, but far less than what was hoped for and waaaay less than Miz Hearst owed her primary lender New Stream Capital. Hopefully with the sale of her fancy Fifth Avenue crib, Miss Missy Socialite can pay off New Stream and move on to something more modest and manageable at The Sherry or on the Left Bank.

As far as we know Miz Hearst continues to own a 45 acre estate up in natty and nabobish New Castle, NY so no one need worry about the poor dear going homeless. But the real question now is, "Where oh where has Veronica Hearst gone?" Is she hiding out in New Castle? Couch surfing for the summer in the Hamptons? Or, as Fifth Avenue Flap Jaw suggested, did she whip out her well stamped passport, hire a plane and head some place South American?

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

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