Elaine Kaufman’s UES co-op hits the market

BHS agent Kathy Sloane (top left hand corner), the penthouse at 412 East 86th Street and Elaine Kaufman (far right)

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. The apartment has a south-facing terrace, wood-burning fireplace and a collection of trinkets including a Jamie Wyeth drawing and a George Brenner-signed baseball (though they’re presumably not included in the price tag). Still, the paper notes that the most expensive sale ever in the building was for just $1.9 million. [NYO]