Monday, January 9, 2012

Some Monday Morning Floor Plan Porn

SELLER: Estate of Monique Uzielli
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $29,500,000
SIZE: about 4,000 square feet, 2-5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen booterbeans, Your Mama just dropped in to New York City on the red eye and we are beyond exhausted so, in the interest of our own mental health, we've got to keep it short and simple today with a wee tidbit of juicy Big Apple floor plan porn.

Late last week word slipped down the international property gossip grapevine that a near mythic penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue had hit the market with an asking price of $29,500,000. And children, is it ever a damn doozy of a penthouse.

The roughly 4,000 square foot full floor penthouse pad, girdled by (approximately) 4,000 square feet of wrap around terrace with 360-degree city and park views, was originally the top floor of a monolithic, mansion-sized 54-room triplex apartment of cereal heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post. Miz Post's palatial penthouse, perched atop 1107 Fifth Avenue (at East 92nd Street), is reported to have included such super-rich people style amenities as a silver storage room, wine cellar, cold storage space for furs and flowers, a private carriage driveway and private elevator, a separate ground floor suite of rooms for a concierge, and another separate suite of rooms for her parents.

At one time the Post penthouse was the largest apartment in all of New York City but was later broken apart and in 1959 the uppermost floor was purchased for an unknown sum by a European aristocrat lady named Monique Uzielli (née de Gunzberg). Miz Uzielli "passed away peacefully" in Montreux (Switzerland) in early October 2011.

Listing information for 10 room spread shows there's a private elevator landing, 2-4 bedrooms depending on how one counts and how one configures the space, 3 bathrooms plus a cell-sized staff bedroom and bathroom, 4 wood burning fireplaces, 2 kitchens, and considerable but hardly unheard of monthly maintenance and common charges of $13,470.

The floor plan included with current listing materials shows the penthouse has been divided into two separate living spaces. A smaller north and east facing apartment, perfect for live-in domestic staff or long-term guests, encompasses a living room with terrace access, one bedroom also with terrace access, a compact but windowed kitchen, and one bathroom.

The larger apartment features and entrance gallery larger than most Manhattan living rooms, a paneled living room with fireplace, library (with fireplace, bathroom walk-in closet and walk-in safe, formal dining room, and service quarters that consists of a kitchen with direct terrace access, 21-foot plus long butler's pantry, and the aforementioned cell-sized staff room and bathroom.

At the opposite corner of the penthouse the two-room master suite include s large boo-dwar with fireplace and park view, cozy corner sitting room with fireplace and jaw dropping views over Central Park, built-in storage cabinets, a dressing closet and multi-winged walk-in closet, and downright small by today's standard attached bathroom.

Iffin Your Mama were the betting type, and we are most definitely not the betting type, we'd wager our retirement account this penthouse will be quickly snapped up by a deep pocketed globe trotting type who will undoubtedly spend many millions more reconfiguring, redecorating and otherwise doing over the entire penthouse into a world class show stopper of an apartment.

Would any of the children like to give it a go and try to reconfigure the floor plan?

listing photos and floorplan: Brown Harris Stevens