Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Max Mutchnick Gets Lucky in Manhattan


SELLER: Max Mutchnick and Erik Hyman
LOCATION: West 11th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $4,100,000 (maintenance and common charges: $2,847/month)
SIZE: 1,750 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This brilliantly warm pre-war home offers a sense of luxury and comfort at every turn. The meticulously designed South facing living room and formal dining room adjoin, looking over quiet and historic W. 11th Street in the heart of the Gold Coast. Superb eat-in kitchen for informal gathering. Two bedroom, both with en-suite baths.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: A little birdie we'll call Manhattan Mary recently whispered in Your Mama's big ear that Will and Grace co-creator and his unfortunately named man-mate Erik Hyman recently sold their Manhattan pied a terre for $4,100,000.

Most of the children will surely recall that over the last year or so Your Mama has discussed Mssrs. Mutchnick and Hyman's real estate comings and goings both ad infinitum and ad nauseum. But for those of you with memories the size of a garbanzo bean, we'll quickly recap:

Back in December of 2007 Misters Mutchnick and Hyman sold their exuberantly engineered house in Beverly Hills to talk show princess Ellen Degeneres and her newly wedded wifey Porta Di Rossi for a blistering $29,000,000. Then in June of 2008, the property mad men took their real estate and residual riches and scooped up tennis titan Pete Sampras' mansion on super swank Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills. Rumors and reports say that the real estate savvy gentleman managed to swing the 6 bedroom and 12 bathroom house for $16,980,000, a huge sum of money by any standards but nowhere near the $23,000,000 asking price. Someone in that family is clearly a very skilled negotiator.

Anyhoo, property records show the Misters Mutchnik and Hyman purchased a 6th floor unit in a reasonably posh, well maintained, and pet friendly building just of lower Fifth Avenue on West 11th Street in July of 2005 for $2,590,000. Listing information we managed to squeeze out of the interweb shows that that co-operative apartment measures (approx.) 1,750 square feet and includes two bedrooms and three bathrooms. (Yes children, we too can see that the floor plan shows 2.5 bathrooms.) The master bedroom includes four separate closets and a hotel sized bathroom large enough to turn a wheelchair, a nice feature for those of us in our advanced years. A confusing and catty wompus hallway runs between the master bedroom at the rear of the apartment and the impressive 38' long living and dining room space. A windowed kitchen is tucked up behind the dining room and appears large enough in which to put a small breakfast table, a rarity in most Manhattan apartments. For four million clams, we can only hope that kitchen has been stuffed full of very expensive and high grade appliances and cabinetry.

Although we know that many of you will loathe them with every fiber of your being, Your Mama l-o-v-e-s all them white walls which are perfect for hanging a small art collection and we love the pre-war proportions of the rooms. But for us, by far the most pleasing part of the co-operative apartment are the stunning herringbone patterned wood floors that have been given a lusterous and lovely finish. We can imagine the dee-light we would feel writhing around on those floors in our birthday suit, but that's really none of y'all biznes, is it?

Clearly the Misters Mutchnick and Hyman hired a nice gay decorator to come in and do up and do over their pied a terre in quasi masculine high homo style with Louis Vuitton trunks, zebra striped benches, well worn brown leather club chairs, velvet sofas and shiny lamp shades. Don't nobody misunderstand Your Mama. We'd live here in a heartbeat (cattywompus hallway and all), but we don't imagine anyone would mistake this for a heterosexual male's home.

What is perhaps most interesting about this sale is that the apartment was listed for $3,960,000 and Manhattan Mary swears it sold for $4,100,000. Although the apartment is listed as "sold" on Streeteasy, due to the fact that property records for the sale are yet to clear, we're unable to confirm that rather impressive (and surprising) $140,000 over the asking price number. If Manhattan Mary is right–and we think he is–Misters Mutchnick and Hyman got very lucky, didn't they?

Between the mortgage melt down and the bailout brouhaha it's interesting to note that some homes and apartments are somehow still selling for more than the asking price. In fact, according to the fine folks at Curbed, this is not the only apartment in the building at 15 West 11th Street that has recently gone to contract for more than the asking price. Yes, children, more.

As mentioned above, at the time of this discussion, prop records of the purchase have yet to clear so we were unable to suss out the buyer's name. We asked Manhattan Mary who the buyer is, natch, and he said it's just some billionaire with money to burn. Must be nice to be spending big as the Dow drops.

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