By Sarabeth Sanders and Amy Tennery
The Real Deal attended an event celebrating the launch of Barbara Corcoran’s new book, “Shark Tales: How I turned $1,000 into a billion dollar business,” last night inside 15 Union Square West’s apartment 5B, which Brown Harris Stevens Select is currently marketing for $8.1 million. The party was chock full of nautical delights — including shirtless, so-called surfer boys, twin retro bathing suit ladies and a bathtub mermaid — and awash with mai tais and champagne, as well as custom sushi rolls.
It drew both real estate bigwigs and Corcoran’s other business buddies, including several co-judges from her entrepreneurial reality show, “Shark Tank.”
And then there was Barbara, perched atop a veritable throne in a Salmon-colored dress she had borrowed from a designer friend. Above her, a tree with billion-dollar “Barbara Bucks” literally sprouting from the leaves. Swarmed by an army of waiters clad in nothing but bright blue briefs and glitter glue, and clutching a mai tai, the apparent Liza Minnelli of real estate and self-proclaimed “she-shark” seemed comfortable in the role she’s carved out in her years after the Corcoran Group.
“I don’t miss being a broker at all. But what I do very much miss are the wacky characters who march into my office every week,” Corcoran said. She loves salespeople, she added, but doesn’t “care much for clients.”
Corcoran agent Carrie Chiang (who was nowhere to be found), though, is still “driving me crazy,” she said.
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There’s blood in the water on the Upper West Side, and a shark is lurking.
Robert Herjavec, the Canadian entrepreneur and judge on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” has set his sights on New York City real estate. Herjavec, whose primary residence is a 50,000-square-foot, custom-built palace in Toronto’s tony Bridle Path enclave, is on the hunt for a Manhattan pied-a-terre.
The technology mogul hit up The Real Deal for real estate advice while out last night celebrating the launch of Corcoran’s “Shark Tales.”
Herjavec told us he’s currently renting a unit at the Mandarin Oriental and recently checked out for-sale units at that home base, only to be blown away by the price.
“Why is Manhattan real estate so expensive?!” he lamented. “Who pays $4,000 a square foot? That’s nuts!”
(Strong words for someone who, according to his “Shark Tank” bio, owns his own private island).
Herjavec said he’s also toured units at 25 Central Park West and one of Trump’s West Side buildings. Of the 2,849-square-foot 15 Union Square West condo where Corcoran was throwing her bash, Herjavec remarked that it was “kind of small” for its $8.1 million asking price.
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Also spotted at the “Shark Tales” event:
— “Today” show legend Al Roker, cutting the line for hand-made sushi rolls.
— Corcoran’s fellow “Shark Tank” judge, entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, telling us repeatedly that the woman of the hour is “insane,” and that he loves telling her so. “She needs to go to my capitalist bootcamp,” he said.
— “Shark Tank” judge and FUBU clothing creator Daymond John — perhaps jokingly — recounting the time Corcoran mooned the camera on set. We weren’t sure whether to believe him.
— Corcoran Group veteran Robby Browne, sipping a mai tai.