Category — Combining Co-ops

Material girl and savvy businesswoman Madonna just paid $7 million for her neighbor’s adjoining co-op apartment at 1 West 64th Street and Central Park West. The cooperative is known as Harperley Hall.

That appears to put an end to her breach of contract lawsuit against the coop board and managing agent Midboro Management which claimed they held up the sale of 868 shares allocated to neighbor Julie Clarke Thayer’s apartment.

Madonna’s neighbors include:

• Actress Fran Drescher, who paid $1,895,000 for her co-op in 2004 via a trust that she created;
• N.Y. Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger;
• Bob Weinstein, the film executive who is joined at the hip in Hollywood with his brother Harvey;
• Lamberto Andreotti, the Executive Vice President and President of Worldwide Pharmaceuticals at Bristol-Meyers Squibb. He paid $5 million for his apartment.

When it’s combined, this will be quite the space! Her existing apartment is a 6,000-square-foot duplex with its own gym and beauty salon.

This will make for a nice space for the entertainer, hubby Guy Ritchie, and their kids. They’ll be able to reach out and touch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons! Interestingly, the co-op was purchased by Madonna in her name only.

Hats off to her NYC real estate attorneys for making the deal go through.

Photo credits: Flickr and Tony Barton

Dr. Vadim Zbarksy and Dr. Oksana Zbarsky just paid $3,650,000 for a condop at 20 East 68th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.


The sellers were George Levendis and Maria Levindis. They sold the apartment for a $675,000 profit above the $2,975,000 that they paid for it in August 2005 when they bought it from New York artists Delah McKay

After graduating in 1984 from the Tjumen State Medical Academy in Tjumen, Russia (inset), the Drs. Zbarsky immigrated to the U.S. and subsequently set up a successful internal medicine practice in Brooklyn.

Bork

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The couple’s apartment consists of two separate co-op apartments that were combined to make a larger one.The building is a full-service condop with condo purchase requirements. No Board approval was required for the Zbarksys’ purchase, but the building still requires prospective purchasers to complete a board package.

20 East 68th Street is also a pet-friendly building for owners, but not for their approved sublets.

A 2-year renovation that combined adjoining co-ops in the historic Musician’s Building at 50 West 67th Street culminated in a sale for $2,425,000.


The sale price was just $25,000 less than the original asking price of $2.45 million listed by Brown Harris Stevens. The company’s broker Arabella Greene Buckworth has handled at least 17 deals just in this co-op.

The seller was Lisa Smith Trollbäck, a co-owner and Principal of Trollbäck + Company, a unique Manhattan design studio that focuses on motion graphics and branding.

The buyers are Paul Somma and Janick Presse.

The co-op’s renovation was done by the husband-and-wife architecture team of Neil Logan and Solveig Fernlund of Fernlund + Logan.

The Musician’s Building was constructed in 1916-17. It has a neo-Renaissance style designed by Shape and
Brady.

The cooperative offers a number of special features. Located between Central Park West and bustling Columbus Avenue, it is only two blocks away from Lincoln Center. Building staff includes dual-role elevator-operators/doormen who work full-time. Apartments in the co-op feature acoustically lined walls, 11 ft. ceilings, a storage area for bikes storage room and a common laundry room. This is a pet-friendly co-op that also permits shareholders to use their apartments as a pied-à-terre, something that most cooperatives usually forbid.

The latest transaction appears to represent a new record for building sales. Until this deal, New York City public records show that the highest price paid for a co-op in the building was $2,295,000 in January 2006 paid by Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett lawyer Walter A. Looney, Jr. and wife Diane Looney for another combination apartment on a higher floor.