From left: Howard Marks, Kathy Sloane and 740 Park Avenue (credit: PropertyShark)
Howard Marks, the chairman and co-founder of global investment management firm Oaktree Capital Management, was the buyer behind the record-setting sale of the Courtney Sale Ross duplex co-op at 740 Park Avenue, according to the New York Observer. As previously reported, the $52.5 million sale marks a record for the most expensive co-op sale. [more]
From left: Courtney Sale Ross, Kathy Sloane and 740 Park Avenue
A new record will soon be set for residential real estate in Manhattan, according to the Wall Street Journal. A combination of two duplex co-op apartments on the 12th and 13th floor of 740 Park Avenue that were assembled by Time Warner’s former chairman Steven Ross, since deceased, has entered contract for $52 million. [more]
From the November issue: A New Yorker’s address is a marker of identity — especially if the New Yorker is a residential real estate broker. This month, The Real Deal peeked inside the homes of some of Manhattan’s top brokers to find out what’s behind their front doors.
The five brokers we visited, who were all in the top 20 on The Real Deal’s latest list of top Manhattan agents (published earlier this year, in the June issue), may specialize in different sectors of the market, but they have all used their industry knowledge to pounce on insider deals and access otherwise obscure properties.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that their own homes seem to match up with the homes that fuel their businesses. [more]
Top co-op expert Kathy Sloane, a senior vice president and managing director at Brown Harris Stevens, has high hopes for Roosevelt Island’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. Sloane, who sits on the board of the group spearheading the $53.4 million project, claims it will increase property values for the cluster of buildings across the East River, including Trump World Tower and One Beekman Place. The 4.5-acre site, which juts into the water like a ship’s prow just north of United Nations Plaza, will incorporate a lawn and a granite “room” inscribed with the “four freedoms” Franklin D. Roosevelt advocated in his 1941 State of the Union speech: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. The project is 36 years in the making, stalled by a lack of financing and the 1974 death of its designer, the noted American architect Louis I. Kahn, among other things. [more]
The subject of a Billy Joel song and the setting of scenes from Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” Elaine’s on the Upper East Side will close next week — six months after the legendary owner, Elaine Kaufman, passed away. Diane Becker, a longtime manager of Elaine’s who took over the restaurant when Kaufman passed away Dec. 3, told the New York Times that business is no longer viable without the eponymous owner. [more]
When Upper East Side restaurant icon Elaine Kaufman died last month, she left her famed eponymous restaurant and the nearby penthouse where she’d lived for more than two decades to Diane Becker, her longtime restaurant manager. Per her will, that penthouse, a two-bedroom co-op at 425 East 86th Street, was to be sold to pay for estate taxes and $230,000 in bequests, and it has just officially hit the market for $2.995 million. According to the Observer, the listing belongs to Kaufman pal Kathy Sloane of Brown Harris Stevens, who first met the late legend when George Plimpton introduced her at Elaine’s in the 1960s. [more]
Has broker Carol Cohen been let go from the Corcoran Group in connection with a recent lawsuit involving her rent-stabilized apartment? The Post reported Sunday that Cohen’s landlord at 737 Park Avenue is suing her and her husband, Lester, alleging that they lied about their income on state forms to prevent a rent increase at their $3,060-per-month apartment. The two reportedly claimed that their combined annual income was less than $175,000 for the previous two years. Cohen, who for years has partnered with top broker Deborah Grubman, this year helped sell a $17.75 million One Beacon Court penthouse, and a mansion at 2 North Moore Street for $24.07 million. [more]
Kathy Sloane, a broker-to-the-stars with Brown Harris Stevens and a top co-op expert, has been hit with her third tax lien in two years, according to the New York Post. Sloane, who has worked with celebrity clients like Robert Redford and the Clintons, was slapped with a $374,238 tax lien from the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday, sources say. Past liens filed against Sloane include a $248,496 one in March 2009 and a lien for $823,274 in April 2009. Sloane’s attorney has yet to make a statement, and when contacted by The Real Deal, Sloane was not immediately available for comment. In the past, Sloane has also faced allegations of tax evasion. [Post]
