SELLER: Tom Freston
LOCATION: East 66th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $38,500,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms (+ 2 staff rooms), 6 full and 3 half bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...Standing six and a half storied with an elevator, this house abounds with exceptional finishes and extraordinary architectural detail. From the elegant entry gallery to the luxurious rooftop terrace, the house epitomizes luxury living. It features a master floor plus three additional master bedrooms, a wonder library, living room, dining room, chef's kitchen, staff suite, gym and seven wood burning fireplaces...
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: New York's favorite bewigged pop artist and self styled superstar Andy Warhol epitomized and documented that brazilliant brand of New York City swank where the high meets low and where Nobodies can be Somebodies and Somebodies can be Nobodies; Where well bred Lee Radziwell types cozied up to a heroin addict hookers on booze soaked sofas at Studio 54 and the Park Avenue socialites like Edie Sedgwick eagerly passed through the gates of The Factory where the iconic and not always well understood artist and his cadre of orphans and misfits turned the art world on its tinfoil lined and Duchampian ear.
In the process of turning outsiders into the ultimate art world insiders Mister Warhol got rich. Or sorta rich anyway, and in 1974 the white haired wonder scooped up this six and a half floor townhouse between Madison and Park Avenues on elegant East 66th street for just $310,000. After Mister Warhol went to meet the great silk screener in the sky in 1987, property records show the house remained part of his estate until it was sold in 1991 for $3,000,000 to a fashionable Spanish ladee named Elena Benaroch who kept the house until the year 2000 when she sold it on to former Viacom bigwig Tom Freston for $6,500,000.
Listing information indicates that Mister Freston renovated the house with a meticulous attention to detail. The floor plan porn reveals that guests are greeted in a guaranteed to impress 47 foot long reception hall that features a long row of book cases and one of the seven wood burning fireplaces. Although a lovely and dignified stair case serves all the main floors of the house, Your Mama could not be more pleased to see an elevator that lifts and descends to five of the six floors because we are 100% certain the steps and landings would be sticky with gin and lime juice if we had to do all that stair climbing while attempting to balance a prodigious platter of sausage and booze all the way from the kitchen to the teeny terrace off the library with it's lurid but appropriate red velvet sofas.
The master bedroom includes two bathrooms and occupies the entire third floor, a fine set up for fornicating when guests are in residence. However, we're not thrilled that the master (and/or mistress) of the house is required to cross a public hall to get to the main bathroom and both of the respectably sized walk in closets. Fortunately, the architect was thoughful enough to include a bathroom attached directly to the bedroom because who wants to be eyeballed on the way to the terlit in their morning all together by their household staff or, even worse, their children?
Speaking of children and/or guest, they're well provided for in three additional bedrooms on the fourth and fifth floors, each with a private pooper. Also on the fifth floor a generous staff suite includes a small sitting room and kitchenette as well as an actual bathroom as opposed to one of those dreadful cave like water closets that are too often seen in the staff rooms of the super rich.
The tippy top of the house features a good sized home gym, a lovely feature if you like sweating to the oldies in your own home...which Your Mama does not. We prefer not to sweat to the oldies anywhere, but certainly not in our own home. We'd have preferred to see a full bath up here with a steam room (we do like a steam after all), but alas. The sixth floor is completed by a decent sized roof terrace, a feature that Your Mama finds enviable and priceless. In the tight confines of New York City, having a small slice of outdoor space like this can help save the sanity as well as provide an excellent spot for our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to sun bathe.
Mister Freston has listed his modest sized townhouse with a not so modest $38,500,000 asking price. If we're being honest, and Your Mama always is, we think the price is a wee bit optimistic. However, what do we know? And besides, Mister Freston has hired two of the top real estate pushers at Corcoran who are certainly no strangers to persuading buyers to cough up the major moolah for prime properties like this one.
Before Your Mama heads out to focus on some paying bizness, let's get out our bejeweled abacus children because it is not the sweetly turned spindles on the staircase or the 9 terlits that have our mouth hanging open like the Lincoln Tunnel, it's the ginormous profit Mister Freston stands to make when he unloads this high priced pile of bricks. Okay, the man paid six and half million smackers and let's say he spent a generous $15,000,000 in renovations (we have NO idea what he spent so don't any of you wackos quote Your Mama on that). That would put the Hollywood honcho into the place for just over twenty million clams which means that minus the humongous real estate fees he stands to pocket a significant $10-$15,000,000 profit for his eight years and renovation headaches. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would welcome those sort of headaches for that kind of return, thank you very much.
Property records show that Mister Freston owns several other properties including a 7,351 square foot home in the same swanky section of the Bev Hills where several other big names also bunk including music exec Guy Oseary. Fading blond bomber Jessica Simpson currently owns a house in Mister Freston's neighborhood that was formerly owned by Tom Freston (who sold it to house hopper Ellen Degeneres in 2001) and sits right next door to the home of soon to be dee-vorced Baby Phat fierceness and bling queen Kimora Lee Simmons.
Source: NY Post
No comments:
Post a Comment