400 Fifth Avenue (Evan Joseph)
One of the four unsold penthouses in the Gwathmey Siegel-designed 400 Fifth Avenue has entered contract, The Observer has learned. And according to Douglas Elliman's Toni Haber, who has the listing, the $12 million asking price to which the buyers agreed was not a penny too expensive. "They got it for $3,644 a square foot," she said, while comparable penthouses have lately been going for $4,500 a square foot and up—way, way up. "So by comparison, this is a nice buy." (The contract nonetheless represents a price-per-square-foot record for the building, and the newly-contracted condo was the most modestly-priced of 400 Fifth's penthouses, all of which are listed with Ms. Haber.)
Gaze while you bath, and vice versa. ( Evan Joseph)
It may soon become relatively more modest still, Ms. Haber told us, as Bizzi & Partners, the developers of the condo, which sits atop the Langham Place hotel, are contemplating combining the two remaining north-facing penthouses into a single, sprawling apartment totaling nearly 7,200 square feet. (As is the fashion with many developments these days.) A condo of that size, occupying the 59th and 60th floors, would represent a fairly exceptional product, Ms. Haber mused.
But the first of the south-facing penthouses to enter contract does not lack for exceptional features. With three bedrooms spread over 3,293 square feet, the apartment is decked out with Mont Blanc stone counter tops, Grohe fixtures, a Poliform kitchen and interior design by DAS Concepts. Diamond-angled windows enhance views that, Ms. Haber said, are practically unrivaled. (One begins to wonder, at a certain point, whether all the "unrivaled views" we hear about are, in fact, rivals of one another.) Nonetheless, with Langham Place right downstairs—complete with spa, gym, the Michelin-starred Ai Fiori and, often enough, a live jazz band—views of the outdoors might be particularly important at 400 Fifth, where, it seems, one might never have reason to leave.
Just one possibility. (Evan Joseph)
It was these same views, Ms. Haber told us, that most enchanted her buyers, whom she described as multi-disciplinary entrepreneurs based on the West Coast. The broker was noncommittal about whether her clients intended the condo as a primary home, saying somewhat cryptically that it would be used "as one of their residences." Sounds to us like a pretty expensive vacation property, but for Ms. Haber, who recently shepherded into contract a penthouse at 56 Leonard last listed for $47 million, it probably seems downright quaint.