Family affair: Howard Lorber buys 620 Park Ave co-op for wife

Howard Lorber purchased an apartment at 620 Park Avenue for his wife, in a deal brokered by his son.

The Douglas Elliman chairman paid $11.7 million for the three-bedroom co-op on the building’s 10th floor, according to property records. Lorber said his wife, Thea Hallman, would move into the apartment, after she had been looking to move out of her apartment on 15 East 69th Street. She is also on the deed.

“She went and looked at it with my son,” Lorber told The Real Deal. “She picked it because my son told me it didn’t need any work.”

Hallman’s new unit at 620 Park is one of 14 in the almost century-old building, and comes with a marble bathroom and private elevator. Lorber’s son, Michael Lorber, who is a broker with Douglas Elliman, organized the deal with Corcoran’s Cathy Franklin. The seller is Reuben Jeffery III, who served as the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs under President George W. Bush.

Property records indicate that Lorber owns an apartment in the East 69th Street building that his wife is planning to leave. It was not immediately clear if it is the same unit Hallman lived in, but the unit happens to be his son’s second most expensive current listing at $17.5 million.

Meanwhile, Lorber, who has not lived with Hallman for 10 years, recently moved into the 67th floor at 432 Park Avenue, where he paid $15 million for a half-floor plate. He joined his long-time business partner Vector Group director, Bennett LeBow, who owns a full-floor apartment on the 64th floor. Lorber previously lived at the Sherry-Netherland.