Bruce Willis scopes out the Apthorp
July 13, 2009 02:45PM
By Candace Taylor
Celebrities interested in the ApthorpThe celebrity buzz around the Apthorp continues.
Bruce Willis and his new bride, 31-year-old model and actress Emma Heming, checked out apartments in the iconic Upper West Side condominium conversion yesterday, sources confirmed.
Willis, 54, and Heming, who wed in March in Turks and Caicos, looked at the 101-year-old building's interior garden courtyard and units, the sources said.
After a recent price reduction, apartments in the building currently start at $1.535 million, with the developers under a deadline to sell at least 25 apartments before September so the condo plan can be declared effective.
The "Die Hard" star, who has three children from his previous marriage to Demi Moore and divides his time between New York and Los Angeles, is no stranger to the Upper West Side. In 2007, he purchased a 2,318-square-foot Trump Place apartment at 220 Riverside Boulevard at 70th Street for $4.26 million.
Prior to that, he reportedly rented an apartment in Trump International condo on Central Park West at a cost of $55,000 per month while working on the film "Perfect Stranger," which also featured Heming.
The Apthorp was built by the Astor family in 1908. Modeled after the Pitti Palace in Florence, it has housed celebrities like Nora Ephron over the years.
Residences in the ornate building are known for the size, ranging from four to 12 rooms and 1,100 to 6,000 square feet, with 11- to 12-foot ceilings, according to Apthorp sales materials. Buyers there have the option of combining and customizing apartments to create even more palatial residences.
Other celebrities reportedly attracted to the building, with its private courtyard that allows residents to come and go without paparazzi surveillance, include Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. According to the Daily News, the celebrity couple has looked at homes there for their brood of six children.
Jill Zarin of "the Real Housewives of New York City" has said she is interested in purchasing a home in the building, while "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin has also toured the building.
New celebrity interest is the best thing that could happen to the Apthorp, which is now focused intently on selling units after surfacing from a very public feud between the sponsors.
Spokespeople for Bruce Willis and the Apthorp had no comment when asked about Willis' interest in the building.
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Comments
Anonymous
Don't do it Bruce! Don't give your money to blood-diamond merchant Lev Leviev aka Lex Luthor
Comment #1 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
The Apthorp's/Douglas Elliman's publicist needs to plant more believable stories. I seriously doubt that Bruce Willis would be looking at apartments on a Sunday in July in New York; and Alec Baldwin will give up the ElDorado over-looking Central Park for the Apthorp at 79th and Broadway, right; and Jill Zarin ? now that is scraping the bottom of the celebrity barrel so to speak ( I am sure she is a perfectly nice woman but to classify her in "celebrity scopings" is a serious stretch of the term "celebrity"); the Pitts ? their connections with NYC are too tenuous and temporary, they don't need to spend tens of millions for a place they will live in one month out of the year, cheaper and easier to stay at the Waldorf Towers. Nice try Howard.
Comment #2 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
Does that mean that if I don't buy now, I'll forever loose my chance to live next Bruce Willis?
Comment #3 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
Looks that way...the AG wouldn't dare not declare the plan effective if John McLean's alter ego signs on
Comment #4 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
I wonder what the lowest price they would take that the AG wouldn't cry foul ? Serioulsy, $100 maybe $1,000 just for a one bedroom , nothing greedy, I would gamble that amount.
Comment #5 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
maybe it was modelled after the Pitti Palace in Florence, but will hereafter be known as the What-a-Pity Palace
Comment #6 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
Such an obviously bogus story. TRD must think its readers are idiots. Are you getting a commission?
Comment #7 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
Many years ago Bruce was selling memberships at the Paris Health Club... about 18 blocks north of the Apthorp.
Comment #8 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
also wasn't Bruce a bartender on the UWS once upon a time in the late 70's/early 80's before he was discovered to do Moonlighting with Cybil Shepard ?
Comment #9 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
If the Pope and Queen Elizabeth bought in the Apthorp the AG wouldn't count their contracts towards the 15% minimum unless they change their primary residencies to 78th and Bway. Not unheard of, but highly unlikely.
Comment #10 Posted By: Anonymous 07/13/09
Anonymous
........and Lindsay Lohan is buying from Moinian at Atelier.........please these cheap (fake) gimmicks are tired.
Comment #11 Posted By: Anonymous 07/14/09
Anonymous
Enough already! It's becoming embarassing.
Comment #12 Posted By: Anonymous 07/14/09
Anonymous
embarassing but fun to call them ( the Apthorp, Elliman their publicist and The Real Deal) on it
Comment #13 Posted By: Anonymous 07/14/09
Anonymous
yes like it would be a great honor to live next to willis onion head and his new bride, get a life people any more shallow and i will vomit
Comment #14 Posted By: Anonymous 07/14/09
Anonymous
Gary Coleman is also looking at a place in the Apthorp
Comment #15 Posted By: Anonymous 07/17/09
Anonymous
Hey, if he's dumb enough to throw money at the Trump rental condo, who knows. Even buying into this cesspool of a mess, if Lev, desperate as he and the banks must be, will give Brucie a KB RPPTs paid by Seller, and maybe a nice discount on a diamond on the side, who knows what's possible in the house that Astors built. Maybe a movie location for Die Hard 5, oh, did they do that one already? Anyway, think of all the ex-Russian Oligarchs who will want to rub up against the onion dome of Bruce Willis's pantomime of Hollywoody Player. Citarella's can even sell a Willis Halibut fillet stuffed with young, not too old, shrimp.
Comment #16 Posted By: Anonymous 07/17/09