Peter Norton Goes Downtown

BUYER: Peter Norton
LOCATION: West 13th Street, New York, NY
PRICE: $6,800,000
SIZE: 2,861 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: ...this trophy property features a sprawling layout with 3 bedrooms and en-suite baths, an award-winning gourmet kitchen, and a gorgeous living room with wood-burning fireplace and endless light and views–with over 23 windows facing North and West throughout. A library, solarium, powder room, laundry room and over 1000sf private terrace complete this very special offering.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: This morning we're gonna piggy back on celebrity real estate boy wonder Max Abelson's report in the NY Observer about tech titan turned big-time art baron Peter Norton purchasing new digs in Noo York City's Greenwich Village.

As Mister Abelson noted, records reflect that the one time monk who created the ubiquitous (and enormously frustrating to this Mac user) Norton Utilities scooped up a West Village penthouse on West 13th Street for $6,800,000. Listing information reveals Mister Norton's new nest measures in at a modest 2,861 square feet with 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, a 42-foot long living/dining/kitchen combination, a laundry room uncomfortably located in the front entrance hall, a small, oddly configured and windowless office space with a poorly placed column and an itty bitty solarium on the second floor that provides access to the 1,095 square foot terrace.

Mister Abelson mentioned that Mister Norton previously owned a dark doo-plex designed by hoity toity architect Maya Lin, which is true. However, the very able Mister Abelson skipped over Mister Norton's most recent Noo York City crash pad which was not the high-style downtown doo-plex, but rather a sprawling art filled condo located on a high floor at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. The children will just have to trust Your Mama when we tell them that the apartment Mister Norton is leaving behind has staggering views east over Central Park, south over all of Manhattan below 59th Street and west to the shores of New Jersey and beyond.

Mister Norton and his ex-wifey Eileen amassed what was widely considered to be one of the largest private contemporary art collections. The couple donated the bulk of the collection to various big name museums prior to their 2000 dee-vorce. Mister Norton has gone on to buy and build up his collection to once again rival those of other contemporary art collectors like tract house titan Eli Broad. The collection includes works of emerging artists as well as those by well established art kings and queens like Takashi Murakami, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto, Vik Muniz and Kara Walker.

But we digress. We're here to discuss the real estate and not the art collection so let's get back to the new Norton nest, which Your Mama thinks is in serious need of Maya Lin's intervention despite it's "award-winning gourmet kitchen." We won't touch the questionable day-core since it belongs to the previous owner/tenent and it's likely that once Mister Norton puts in a few pieces of his rather large and speck-tack-u-lar art collection it will little matter what else is in the room.

None the less, we can only hope that his team of nice gay decorators will do something about the coral colored pain in the master bedroom that makes Your Mama's eyes bleed. We also hope that Mister Norton will hire a talented and expensive landscape designer who can work with the vast expanse of the flat and featureless roof terrace.

What we do like are the corner windows in the living room and solarium as well as the fantabulous looking floors. As the children might imagine we also appreciate that each bedroom comes equipped with its own private pooper...even though most of them don't have any windows for ventilation which could be a real problem the morning after Indian take out.

As far as Your Mama knows, Mister Norton owns several other homes including one in Los Angeles (where his company offices are located in Santa Monica) and a hew-mongus and historic house in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard that he rebuilt with a meticulous attention to historic dee-tail after it was leveled in a colossal conflagration.

Mister Norton's new building, called The Greenwich is also home to fabulous fashion freakazoid Michael Kors and campy Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith, a man with eyebrows so high-lariously arched it makes Your Mama pee a little.