From left: Robert Knakal and Jeff Sutton From the December issue: Sometimes, the Penn is mightier than the sword — at least when it comes to New York City’s real estate elite. The roster of “Wharton Mafia” — those who have graduated from the real estate program at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania — is long and illustrious.

The school — which now has a center named for billionaire investor Sam Zell and his late business partner — has churned out heavyweight grads like Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, William Mack, Richard Mack, Jeff Sutton, Andrew Isikoff, Jeff Blau, Robert Knakal, Andrew Mathias, David Brause and Ara Hovnanian.

The schooling can prove professionally transformative. For every heir like Trump or Mack who gains some polish, there are others with fewer — if any — connections who gain the New York real estate world partly through Wharton. [more]

Ara Hovnanian, president and CEO of Hovnanian Enterprises

K. Hovnanian Enterprises’ 108-home development in Montvale, NJ is set to restart construction in the next 30 days after postponing work due to market conditions in 2007, a company spokesperson said.
Although Hovnanian had begun the land development on the project, the builder decided to shelve the plans in an effort to hit the market during a more amenable time. It was not immediately clear when the project was first launched.
Doug Fenichel, a Hovnanian spokesperson, said that financing the project was never an issue and that it currently has all the proper permits.
“The market just wasn’t right,” Fenichel said. “We looked at the project… and decided to wait until people were willing to buy homes again.”
The nine-building development, a “resort at home living” community geared toward the over-55 set, will include a 35,000-square-foot clubhouse. Hovnanian hasn’t named asking prices yet.
While Fenichel said Hovnanian is confident that this strategy will work, he said the company hasn’t held off on other relatively recent developments in the area, with the exception of a Trenton project in which financing had been a consideration.
“Our communities are up and running,” Fenichel said. “When the market turned we were able to maintain.” [more]

From left: Ara Hovnanian, the townhouse at 16 West 12th Street, and 820 Fifth Avenue, the Hovnanians’ former home (Building photos source: PropertyShark)

Developer Ara Hovnanian and his wife Rachel closed on a townhouse at 16 West 12th Street earlier this week, the Post reported. The home, which was originally listed for $24.975 million early last year, belonged to divorcing couple Luke and Julie Janklow, the Sweetiepie restaurant founder, who purchased it for $4.5 million in 2004. The most recent asking price was $17.9 million. Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens had the listing. The Hovnanian’s sold their 820 Fifth Avenue apartment to socialite and philanthropist Lily Safra last year for $33 million — they were asking $35 million — but not before a $31 milliion bid by Jeff Blau, president of the Related Companies, was famously rejected by the building’s co-op board. [Post]
[more]

From left: Lily Safra, Ken Griffin and 820 Fifth Avenue (Building photo source: PropertyShark)

In a high-end game of musical chairs, socialite and philanthropist Lily Safra sold one cooperative apartment at 820 Fifth Avenue at 63rd Street for $40 million to a hedge fund manager and on the same day bought another in the same building for $33 million from home building CEO Ara Hovnanian.

Safra closed on the sale of the 12th-floor unit to Kenneth Griffin as well as the purchase of the fourth-floor unit from Hovnanian, CEO of Hovnanian Enterprises on Dec. 16, city property records show. Residential real estate Web site Coopsales.com first reported the $40 million Safra sale today. Reports from October said Griffin, founder of the $13 billion hedge fund Citadel Investment Group, was going to buy Hovnanian’s fourth-floor unit, but instead he bought Safra’s, city records show. Safra is the widow of Edmond Safra, a billionaire banker.

Hovnanian Enterprises is in a difficult financial period, reporting this month its 13th consecutive quarterly loss.

[more]

Serena Boardman (Photo credit: Patrick McMullan)

From the December issue: It’s 2005, and golden-haired socialite
Serena Boardman is sunning herself on a yacht near the coast of
Sardinia in Italy. Nearby, her friend Dori Cooperman — now best known
for befriending actress Lindsay Lohan in rehab — is on the phone with
a reporter from W Magazine, chronicling the addictive qualities of
photo Web site PatrickMcMullan.com. Boardman interjects with her
opinion of the site, which documents the social lives of New York
City’s glitterati. “Tell him it captures a moment,” she shouts. Until
recently, the scene was typical for the 39-year-old Boardman, the
jet-setting heiress to a banking fortune whose stepmother is a European
princess. Along with society pals like Alexandra von Fürstenberg and Blaine Trump, Boardman spent her 20s being photographed in couture gowns at galas and benefits all over New York and Palm Beach, often with her equally glamorous sister, Samantha. Magazines chronicled her taste in clothes (Roberto Cavalli ruffled cocktail dresses) and jewelry (Verdura). She held jobs at the Web site Luxuryfinder.com and in the jewelry department at Sotheby’s. But to the media they were a postscript to Boardman’s glamorous social life. So it comes as a surprise to those who know Boardman that only a few years later, she’s morphed into one of the most successful real estate brokers in the business. [more]