The Richard Meier-designed Westbeth housing complex, located at 463 West Street in the West Village, has finally achieved landmark status, Curbed reported.

The 383 units, which were originally designed as live-work spaces for artists, are housed within 13 buildings, comprising an entire city block, bound on the north by Bethune Street; on the east by Washington Street; on the south by Bank Street; and on the west by West Street. They were designed by Meier in 1968, before he became famous.

Preservationists have been campaigning for the buildings to be landmarked since 2004, Curbed noted. They’re already on the state and national registers of historic places. The complex is reportedly in a state of disrepair, and requires plumbing and roof fixes. [more]

From left: RFR Holdings’ Aby Rosen, Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman, architect Richard Meier and a Core Club suite

In 2005, RFR Holdings head Aby Rosen gave Jennie Saunders the first six floors of the condominium he was building at 60 East 55th Street to house her club for the rich and famous.

As a recent profile in Departures magazine highlighted, the club, known as Core Club, has become a haven for New York elites from all industries, including Blackstone Group President Stephen Schwarzman, architect Richard Meier, football legend Dan Marino and Hollywood talent agent Ari Emanuel. Many of those same people were among the 150 people who invested $100,000 to get Core Club off the ground.
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Financier Gilbert Lamphere, Meier North Tower and the interior of the apartment

Financier Gilbert Lamphere, chairman of Flatwood Capital, is finally free of Meier North Tower, the first development in Manhattan by architect Richard Meier. The unnamed Chilean buyer who went into contract on Lamphere’s duplex penthouse in the building at 133 Perry Street has completed his purchase for $11.8 million, according to public records filed with the city today.

Lamphere, who bought the unit from Martha Stewart in 2004 for only $6.65 million, first listed the property in October 2010 with Sotheby’s International Realty vice president Camille McKinley. McKinley was not immediately available for comment. The identity of the buyer’s broker was not clear. — Katherine Clarke [more]

173 Perry Street and the interior of Jacobson’s apartment

Seven years after buying two floors of the Richard Meier-designed 173 Perry Street condominium for bargain prices amidst construction concerns, Keith Jacobson cashed in. The New York Observer reported that public records filed yesterday show the combined apartment sold for $10.5 million last month, $5.78 million more than the $4.72 million he paid for the sixth and seventh floors.
Jacobson, a former investment banker who became a developer, according to the Observer, acquired the units completely empty, and furnished them entirely himself. He had put the home on the market for $12.5 million in 2008 with Robby Browne, Chris Kann and Gregory Sullivan of the Corcoran Group, but has been off the market since then. [more]

A high-profile Tribeca retail condominium, designed by famed architect Richard Meier and currently leased to celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, has hit the market for $9 million, according to Crain’s.

The 23,800-square-foot space at 66 Leonard Street, owned by Yitzchak Tessler of Tessler Developments, is comprised of an 8,000-square-foot ground floor restaurant space and two equally-sized floors beneath. While currently empty, it is being considered for a new restaurant concept by Vongerichten, whose lease expires in 2019. It previously housed Japanese eatery Matsugen.
The space can be delivered empty, Eastern Consolidated, which is marketing the condo, said, or with the option of keeping Vongerichten as a tenant. [more]

Residents of Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park are suing the next-door synagogue over “pounding music throughout the night” that is “so loud and oppressive it literally shakes” the glassy new condominium, according to the Post. The building’s board alleges in a lawsuit filed last month that the Union Temple of Brooklyn, the borough’s oldest Jewish congregation, refuses to negotiate over the noise emanating from the synagogue’s Grand Ballroom, which it rents out for late-night events, despite the fact that the decibel level has sometimes been eight times the legal limit. “Even if the building was made of steel, you’d still hear this,” said Dennis Sughrue, president of the board at On Prospect Park, which sits directly to the synagogue’s east on Grand Army Plaza. [more]

Gil Lamphere, Martha Stewart and 173 Perry Street and the penthouse unit

[Updated at 5 p.m. on June 28 with comments from the seller, Gil Lamphere] A West Village condominium unit that once belonged to lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, which she sold before heading to prison in an insider trading case, has found a buyer.

This past Saturday, a contract was signed on the penthouse, at 173 Perry Street, according to people familiar with the deal. The sale price was $11.8 million, those sources said, and the buyer was a Chilean bank executive whose name wasn’t immediately available.

Camille McKinley, the Sotheby’s International Realty broker who handled the listing, did not return a call for comment.

The unit, a duplex with one bath, four terraces, 3,300 square feet and keyed elevator access in a white metal and glass tower designed by Richard Meier, had been listed for $13.9 million.

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Developer SDS Procida couldn’t have asked for better weather to show off the last three penthouses at the Richard Meier-designed On Prospect Park.

Brilliant sunshine and cooling breezes greeted visitors last night to the glass and steel tower at 1 Grand Army Plaza (though the wind did cause quite a few cocktail napkins to disappear). Brokers and potential buyers wandered through three newly unveiled penthouses — all pure white in typical Meier fashion — with floor-to-ceiling windows and private terraces. (See party pics above.)
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Images from “Building Stories” include, clockwise from top left, Costas Kondylis, Kondylis-designed Riverside South, Donald Trump, Richard Meier and Larry Silverstein

Manhattan’s most prolific architect will get the big-screen treatment in the premier of a new documentary by The Real Deal tonight.

The film, “Building Stories,” about the career of architect Costas Kondylis, who has added more than 86 towers to the New York skyline yet has remained relatively unknown to the general public, is airing as part of an invite-only event at the Morgan Library in Midtown.

Developer Donald Trump, who has hired Kondylis for many of his buildings, is slated to introduce the film. Renowned New York journalist and novelist Peter Hamill will also give a talk. The event is expected to draw more than 750 people. TRD [more]

Stuart Elliott

From the May issue: The Real Deal is firing up the klieg lights and rolling out the red carpet.
This month will see the premiere of our first full-length documentary feature film. Called “Building Stories,” it’s a look at the most prolific architect in New York City, Costas Kondylis, who has added an incredible 86 towers to the skyline here but is a relative unknown to the average man on the street.
The film, which features interviews with real estate bigwigs like Donald Trump, Larry Silverstein, Richard Meier, Aby Rosen and many others, will be screened as part of an invite-only event May 11 at the Morgan Library in Midtown. Later this month, check out our website for more information about the film’s public release date. [more]