If You've Got $65 Million And A Robber Barron Itch To Scratch, This Midtown Mansion's Got Your Name Written All Over It

You could drop a nice chunk of change on some cookie cutter condo or you could spend that money on a place that throws it back...turn of the 19th century back.
Author:
Publish date:
Updated on

In the market for a new pad? Passed on Bill Ackman's Mona Lisa In The Sky and that Brooklyn couple's 11,000-square foot nightmare, not because they wouldn't be lovely places to live but because you're looking for something a little more...Gilded Age-esque? Want to tell guests, "If these walls could talk, they'd say 'John Pierpont Morgan' was here"? Have no problem living on West 54th Street? Then consider today your lucky day.

On West 54th Street, two limestone-and-brick homes built [in 1898] by the architecture firm McKim, Mead & White for James J. Goodwin, a cousin and business partner of financier J. Pierpont Morgan, are about to go on the market as a single $65 million listing. Brokers are positioning the property, known as the James J. Goodwin residence, as a low-rise, more human-scale alternative to the high-price megatowers under development in the area. Its 50-foot-wide property at 9-11 W. 54th St., across from the Museum of Modern Art, could be transformed back into a 22,500-square-foot single-family home and one of the largest mansions in Manhattan. Only a handful of mansions in the borough are wider, city tax records show. It is a landmark building, and many of its interior rooms, as well as the entry and staircase, with richly carved details, have been restored to their original grandeur after a period of disrepair when it served as a prep school.

The place might not come with waterfall showerheads or a fully wired for surround sound system but it does have a few places to stash your most precious items that nobody but nobody is getting into.

The houses, now combined, also come with an amenity that might enhance its appeal for a financial mogul: safes. One, a walk-in safe for the family silver, is located in an octagonal dining room, with the steel entry built into a wood-paneled closet door. The other is a 17-foot-deep bank vault behind a guard station with bulletproof windows.

Put in an offer today.

For Sale: a Gilded Age Mansion in Manhattan [WSJ]

Related: Brooklyn Couple Suffering In 11,000-Square-Foot Condo Needs Your Help

Related

I will sell this house today

Sleep Where Dan Loeb Hath Slept

The Third Point founder is reportedly looking for a buyer for his 10,674-square-foot penthouse at 15 Central Park West. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, people hear that Loeb "wants $100 million," which would represent a 122.22% return (DL and his wife bought the place for $45 million in 2008). While perhaps a tad pricey, consider that back in November, Sandy Weill was able to get $88 million for his 15CPW apartment, a relative dump at 6,744-square-feet.* As for the Loebs, they are apparently "in search of something larger," if you've got any leads. It seems pretty obvious that a fellow hedge fund manager with a 20,000 square foot UES mansion** and a liquidity problem might want to get in touch but we'll let him come to that in his own time. Apartment Hunting For The Superrich [NYT] *Weill told prospective buyers that he'd be donating the money to charity but maybe they would've done this for him anyway. **Selling points: Indoor pool, bar and lounge with a closet.

I will sell this house today

Sleep Where Erin Callan Hath Slept

If Joe Gregory's Lloyd Harbor manse isn't your style, or the $22 million asking price seems excessive for a place with only 8.5 baths, take a moment to consider the former Lehman Brothers CFO's East Hamptons pad. Callan is asking $3.95 million for the place, where she holed up following the financial crisis and where love blossomed with firefighter Anthony Montella, who she married last January. For you're money you'll get 7 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, 5,000 square feet, 2 acres, a heated gunite pool, a barn, garden vineyards, "majestic trees," and a little piece of history. Make her an offer Former Lehman CFO Lists East Hampton Home...Again [Curbed via Dealbook]

News

Steve Cohen Gives 215 Million (And Counting) Fingers To The Universe

In the news this week you will find two stories of men soothing what ails them through retail therapy: that of Friday Night Lights writer Buzz Bissinger, who confessed in the pages of GQ to spending over $600,000 at the House of Gucci in a leather fetish/bondage binge that resulted in him coming to own 'eighty-one leather jackets, seventy-five pairs of boots, forty-one pairs of leather pants, thirty-two pairs of haute couture jeans, ten evening jackets, and 115 pairs of leather gloves' and Steve Cohen, who will not be held down by SEC settlements topping half a billion dollars or bulls-eyes on his back. Earlier this week it was reported that the SAC Capital founder had picked up Picasso's Le Rêve for $155 million as "a gift to himself" and now he's got a place to put it: