Is Aby Rosen the last true celebrity developer in town?

From the July issue: Would Aby Rosen agree to an interview? Yes, his publicist said on a recent Thursday. Then came the catch: He was traveling and might be hard to pin down. The publicist wouldn’t say where he was, but in Rosen’s case there’s an app for that.

The following Monday, the developer posted a selfie to his Instagram account, which has just short of 16,000 followers. It showed him tanned and unshaven, wearing sunglasses and a Panama hat, with the Sardinian coastline in the background. “Monday in Heaven” read the caption.

Rosen, co-founder of the high-profile New York property firm RFR Realty, is no stranger to grand vacations. The 57-year-old real estate mogul has also never been one to shy away from a good public fight. He famously called Tom Wolfe an anti-Semite in 2008 after Wolfe mocked Rosen’s physique during a heated construction dispute. Several years later, he forklifted a massive bronze statue of the Virgin Mary — with the inside of her pregnant belly exposed — onto the lawn of his Long Island estate over outcries from his neighbors.