Although most of the time Madonna and Guy Ritchie reside in London where they are rumored to own as many as six townhouses in the Marylebone area, it's long been rumored and reported that she and the Mister are looking to expand their real estate empire in the Big Apple.The Kabbalah Kween has long called Harperley Hall her New York City base, a second tier building on Central Park West where the material girl first purchased a co-operative apartment back when she was married to actor Sean Penn.
Now puppies, before we get scad of emails and phone calls, don't misunderstand Your Mama. We are not saying Harperley Hall is a pile of shit. It's a lovely full service building with well scaled pre-war apartments overlooking the park. It is not, however, The Dakota or The Beresford or even the San Remo, where poor Madge was famously rejected by the stiff co-op board when she tried to buy a three bedroom, $1,200,000 unit back in 1985.
Anyhoo, over the years the material mommy purchased two more adjacent units at Harperley Hall and combined them into a 6,000 square foot duplex (pictured above) that her brother Christopher did over into a sleek, sophisticated and elegant 1930s urban pad filled with Art Deco velvet furniture and quite a few paintings by Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka. It's really quite expensive looking, but it does not look like the sort of place to have two small boys running around knocking shit over.
Well, now that Madge has that cute new child from Malawi and she's not yet purchased any of the many gigantic and grand townhouses on the Upper East Side that she's eye balled, 6,000 square feet is simply not enough space for a family of five and the small army of assistants, nannies, trainers, cooks and etc. that are required to keep a high powered celebrity home running efficiently. So, according to recent reports, she tried buy another adjacent seventh floor unit to incorporate into her already three unit Harperley Hall combo. But the board rejected the purchase.
And a hush fell over the Upper West Side.
So, no doubt rabid and frothing at the rejection, the used to getting her way entertainer did what anyone with a few hundred million dollars does. She called her attorneys and filed a damn law suit against the board requesting they allow the sale to proceed and to cover her court costs and legal fees. Oh yes she did. Probably not exactly the best way to ingratiate yourself with the neighbors who sit on the board, so she must really want that apartment.
Madonna may be the biggest name celebrity who shacks up at Harperley Hall, but she's not the only one. Property records reveal that comedic actress Fran Drescher and her annoying voice own a fifth floor unit. We tease. We love Frannie and her campy made up voice.
In addition to Madge's Manhattan duplex, shes' got those six townhouses in London, Ashcombe House, the family's 1,200-acre country estate in south Wiltshire once owned by famed photographer Cecil Beaton, and a somewhat modest mansion on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. That's all the properties that Your Mama is aware of, but we would not be surprised to learn she's also got some ultra posh Caribbean getaway or a fetching finca in Spain.
As it stands, co-op boards are not currently required to provide a reason or justification for a rejection, so it'll be interesting to see what develops and results from the lawsuit. Your Mama makes no predictions because co-op boards wield a strange and staggering kind of power that we're not certain can be foiled by a judge...at least not until the law changes that will require boards to provide a justifiable reason for rejections. Until then, Madonna battles on.
Source: Architectural Digest/Durston Saylor (photos)
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