Bonita Roche, the architect ex-wife of billionaire Charles Bronfman, was married to the Canadian liquor scion for just three years. The pair divorced in 2011, marking the end of their short-lived union with a lavish divorce party to which 100 of their friends were invited. Now Roche, who had little time to acclimate to life in Bronfman’s Fifth Avenue penthouse, has purchased a more modest abode of her own at 27 West 67th Street, public records show.
She bought the Upper West Side spread, listed by Pat Slochower and Karen Burman of Douglas Elliman, for $4.8 million. The three-bedroom home went on the market in September 2012 and was asking $4.9 million, Streeteasy.com shows; the deal closed December 21. The property features three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms as well as a dining room and library. It also comes with access to a large landscaped roof deck, according to the listing.
As previously reported, Roche and Bronfman had been set to move from the billionaire’s penthouse digs at 838 Fifth Avenue to a new pad at 810 Fifth Avenue, which Bronfman purchased for $21 million in 2010, before their divorce. But, according to a New York Times article published about the couple’s divorce in 2011, the pair did not even begin to renovate the property before separating. “We decided not to renovate until we decided whether to stay together,” Bronfman told the Times.
That unrenovated Fifth Avenue pad is now back on the market with Sotheby’s International Realty power-broker Serena Boardman, asking $21.5 million, The Real Deal previously reported. The 13-room residence, which is currently configured as nine rooms, features a living room, dining room and library as well as a master suite with his and hers marble-clad bathrooms.
A call to Burman was not immediately returned. It was not immediately clear who represented Roche in the deal.