Park Avenue 12-room duplex asks $17M

A 12-room duplex at 655 Park Avenue whose layout was commissioned by a member of the Rockefeller family is set to hit the market for $16.9 million — marking the first sale of the apartment in more than two decades.

The 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom unit is located between 67th and 68th streets and has a 36-foot grand entrance gallery topped off with gold-leaf molding. It also boasts a nearly six-foot tall marble fireplace and a butler’s pantry. The owner is collector and amateur interior decorator Karen McGarry Karp, who has lived in the apartment for 23 years.

“It is a piece of divinity,” Karp told the New York Times. “It is really elegant and totally dramatic and yet it manages to feel homey.”

The apartment is listed with Douglas Elliman’s Howard Margolis and Pat Slochower as well as Kirk Henckels of Stribling & Associates.

“It’s very easy to describe it as rare,” Margolis told the newspaper, “because it is.” [NYT]  -– Hiten Samtani