Ron Perelman’s former Lenox Hill offices hit market for $160M

A whisper listing in Lenox Hill could make a lot of noise if it finds a buyer willing to meet its astronomical asking price.

A pair of buildings on East 62nd Street where billionaire investor Ron Perelman once kept his offices have been placed on the market, according to a person familiar with the listing, who said the owners are hoping they’ll command a price “in excess of $160 million.”

The adjacent properties between Park and Madison avenues, which allow for both residential and commercial use, are available separately or can be combined for 41,000 square feet, according to marketing materials seen by The Real Deal.

Representatives for Casa Blanca, which has the listing according to the materials, declined to comment.

The 40-foot-wide building at 35 East 62nd Street features a Renaissance-style facade with a top-floor loggia and Flemish-bonded yellow brick above a limestone base.

Erected in 1904 as a school building by ​​George Keller, the Fleming School operated there until the property was sold to Perelman’s MacAndrews & Forbes holding company for $9 million in 1989. At five stories and 25,000 square feet, it is the larger of the two buildings.

The neighboring building at 41 East 62nd Street is 35 feet wide with a red brick facade laid in English bond and was built in 1896 as a horse stable for Elbridge Thomas Gerry. The 16,000-square-foot building has twin skylights on its fourth-floor mansard roof.

Zoning in the area permits a mix of commercial and residential uses. The Department of Buildings approved plans in July 2021 to remove partitions separating the offices in the larger building. Both buildings received landmark status in 1982.

Perelman, who has held a majority stake in the cosmetics giant Revlon since 1985, bought the smaller building in 2004 for $14.5 million, with both properties becoming collateral for a multitude of loans, property records show.

The Chapman Group, owned by the family of Perelman’s fifth and current wife, Anna Chapman, bought the buildings in April 2021 for a combined $35 million, providing the billionaire investor with cash while he sold a wide range of assets, including his personal art collection.

Demand for cosmetics plummeted while much of the world stayed at home during the pandemic, compounding problems for Perelman’s heavily indebted makeup and skincare company.

A representative for the Chapman Group declined to comment.

The two properties, along with another of Perelman’s at 27 East 62nd Street, became so indebted — and so damaged was Revlon by the pandemic, with shares down over 70 percent since the start of 2020 — that Blackstone executive Tony James bought loans secured by the buildings from Citigroup for $115 million, a 40 percent discount.

Perelman has tried selling other real estate since the pandemic took hold, including his 47-acre estate in East Hampton asking a reported $180 million and a former personal residence at 36 East 63rd Street, for $60 million.

He sold a separate East Hampton estate earlier this year for $84 million.