from Flatiron to Soho to Tribeca for serial loft owners with exquisite taste

real estate stalking is not for the squeamish
Regular Manhattan Loft Guy readers know that I am a bit of a voyeur, interested in the choices that people make to buy or sell a loft, and where they go from there (or came from). The notice address on the deed for the sellers of the penthouse loft I hit on Tuesday (September 13, penthouse loft at 17 Greene Street sells at ridiculous (adjusted) value after chopping, chopping) shows the sellers going from a not-quite-prime Soho block (at what I thought was an inexplicably low price) to a nearly-prime Tribeca block (7 Worth Street).

They sold this 3-bedroom “3,200 sq ft” loft in Soho with a “1,500 sq ft” private roof deck that the babble called merely “sensational” but I call drool-worthy. How do you top that?

Turns out that it gets rather complicated, and that these folks are collectors of Manhattan lofts, with at last 3 on their resumes in the last 10 years. My kind of people!

when 3,000 sq ft is just not enough
Turns out that, while they owned the Greene Street penthouse from 2003 (at least, per The Shark) until selling last month, they have also owned a loft in Tribeca since April 2008 (can you spell P E A K?). Here is the April 29, 2008 deed at $5.075mm, which I am pretty certain corresponds to this listing for the top floor loft at 7 Worth Street (“4,750 sq ft” interior, with another “1,500 sq ft” private roof deck). That’s nearly half again as large on Worth Street as the Greene Street penthouse. But it was not in drool-worthy condition when they bought it.

Remember The Peak? These folks paid over $5mm for a renovation opportunity (“You and your architect will enjoy the extraordinary potential of this amazing home!”). That listing has only 2 interior photos, which give a sense of the classic beams and bricks. Through the miracle that is the inter-tubes, here are photos of the space after they got done exploring its potential with an architect (you will recognize the bricks and beams, and archways). The massive brick work gives this loft a different feel than the columns on Greene Street, but these people have pretty exquisite taste.

Having paid $5mm to buy at 7 Worth Street in 2008 (and then, what … another $1.5mm to renovate?) the sequence suggests that they moved there only last year, as the compete listing history recounted in Tuesday’s post shows that the 17 Greene Street penthouse was first offered for sale in February 2010. Of course, that campaign did not work out until last month, so these folks carried two pretty friggin’ spectacular pretty large lofts (each with 1,500 sq ft roof deck) from April 2008 to August 2011.

going back only so far (one more step)
For all I know, these folks have been buying (and renovating!) Manhattan lofts since 1975, but I can only track them back one more step, to the “2,500 sq ft” loft (per our data-base) they sold in August 2004 for $2.375mm, #3E at 222 Park Avenue South. Look again at those numbers: $2.375mm for “2,500 sq ft way back in August 2004. Must have been in pretty spectacular condition, no?

That same loft was later offered for sale for a year just before Lehman, and for another year ending quite recently, without selling. But the listing description was fairly ecstatic:

Luxe for Life. Soaring ceilings, grand dimensions, and uncommon attention to detail intersect in this magnificent home. Featured in Wallpaper* and this Springs New York Magazine design issue, the loft represents a truly accomplished masterwork of design. 9-foot casement windows encourage luminous interplay of sun and shadow on floors of alabaster granite in the open loft space, over 26 feet wide, with gas fireplace. The professional kitchen begs to entertain, with a six-burner Wolf range, two dishwashers and sinks, and plentiful space for wine, dry, and refrigerated storage. The master suite and large dressing closet afford peaceful, separate, and spacious retreat. And bathrooms are fitted with rich materials – travertine, zebra slate, teak, hand-blown glass. Fully wired for sound with individual-room wall controls. Dual-zone central air.

I can’t be sure it was in the same condition when these folks sold it in 2004, but the pix and babble are consistent with how they later lived on Greene Street and on Worth Street.

The sequence works nicely: they had already bought the 17 Greene Street penthouse when they sold 222 Park Avenue South in August 2004, so maybe they were renovating in Soho while living in Flatiron. As we’ve seen, they bought and renovated Worth Street, while owning on Greene Street. Having the resources to carry two lofts at once, while renovating the new one surely makes things easier!

to the light and the outdoors
Apart from the outdoor space in their lofts in Soho and Tribeca, the major difference between those penthouses and the 222 Park Avenue South loft is light. The #3E floor plan has relatively few windows and the pictures show very little light. The “2,500 sq ft” of #3E is not only smaller than Greene Street at “3,200 sq ft” and Worth Street at “4,750 sq ft”, the #3E footprint is very tight, yielding a master suite and only one other (small) bedroom.

a note about the stalking
Obviously, the names of these folks are all over the deed filings I link to, and in that Worth Street photo spread. (If they are celebrities, they are not to me; so far as I know they are civilians.) I choose not to use their names in text here so that I don’t contribute to Google Juice they may not want. A small thing, but still …

© Sandy Mattingly 2011