At the desk of: Arthur Becker

From the May issue: Arthur Becker’s Tribeca real estate office doubles as an art studio, with a full-fledged workshop along with sculptures and paintings he’s created on display. The space is just down the street from the site of what will be his first ground-up solo development project, at 465 Washington Street, an eight-unit luxury condo with an expected sell of $52.5 million. The 66-year-old former Bear Stearns stockbroker made his fortune buying tech companies in the early 2000s but has more recently made forays into real estate in New York and Florida. Until now, however, he’s been more of a silent-money partner, most notably backing Michael Stern and Kevin Maloney’s Billionaires’ Row development at 111 West 57th Street. He was also invested in 10 Sullivan Street, a 16-story condo building developed by Maloney and Robert Gladstone’s Madison Equities. But in August, the developers transferred three adjacent Sullivan Street townhouses to Becker in exchange for his stake in the project. Becker — who was married to designer Vera Wang for 20-plus years until the two separated in 2012 — will reportedly live in one of them and sell the other two. The mogul’s business dealings are vast, spanning finance, tech, art and, of course, real estate, which he seems poised to get more heavily involved in going forward. “In the end, I got lucky, and I came into the market at the right time,” he said.