136 East 79th St. Co-op Sells for $7M; 22% Drop From List Price

by Co-op Board

An enormous four bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom co-op apartment on the Upper East Side just sold for $7 million, more than 22% below it’s original list price of $8,995,000.

It’s either a sign that folks with money in N.Y.C. co-ops are feeling the effects of the troubled mortgage mess, or that Douglas Elliman Agent Ellen Wagman may have overpriced the apartment.

Perhaps the apartment’s heavily pinked-out appearance put a damper on the price too.

The seller was legendary businesswoman Darla Moore. In the early 1990s, Moore became “the highest-paid woman in banking” with a reputation as “an extremely tough negotiator.” She was a leading powerhouse in Chemical Bank’s bankruptcy group, before the bank was acquired by Chase.

Moore moved back to her grandparents’ old tobacco farm in Lake City, South Carolina, a town that her husband Richard Rainwater describes as being smack in the “middle of bum-fuck nowhere.”

The buyers of Moore’s co-op are James, P. Riley, Jr., retired managing director and partner at Goldman, Sachs & Co., and his wife Ellen Riley.

Maintenance for the apartment is $4,636 per month. The building is pet-friendly and according to the listing, has a “state of the art gym under construction.”