UPDATED Sep. 1, 2020, 9:44 pm: The Gramercy Park home that belonged to late “Cars” frontman Ric Ocasek and his wife, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, has gone into contract asking $10 million.
The 23.5-foot wide property has five bedrooms, 20-foot-high ceilings and a private garden. It was originally listed in 2016 for $15.25 million. Ocasek died last September at 75 as he attempted to recover from surgery.
The home was one of 13 properties above $4 million to go into contract last week in Manhattan, according to a market report from Olshan Realty. The only one asking more was a penthouse at 5 Beekman Street, which was seeking $12.495 million when the agreement was reached.
The total deal count was one fewer than the week prior but should be considered a solid number in the current climate, said Donna Olshan, the author of the report.
“The market is handicapped and you have to look at the result through the prism of the pandemic,” she said. “Also the fact that it’s August, which is always slow.”
The Beekman Street penthouse was the last sponsor unit to sell at the Gerner, Kronick + Valcarcel-designed building, capping off five years of marketing. The property spans 3,554 feet, with three bedrooms, a 155-square-foot terrace and views of the Hudson River.
The No. 2 deal — Ocasek’s former home — was marketed by Debbie Korb of Sotheby’s International Realty. She told Olshan the buyers were a couple who visited the space twice.
“They are New Yorkers and they live in a house now and plan to renovate,” she said. “The husband came the first time with an architect and a contractor. I told [the buyers’ broker] Jeremy Stein that it needed work and the client came prepared. I love that in a buyer.”
Ocasek, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, first met Porizkova on the set of a music video in 1984.
The couple had been legally separated for almost three years before the musician’s death, but in an Instagram post last October, Porizkova said they had continued living together and “still filled the family car.”
“His death is the end of my world as I knew it,” she wrote. But in March she told CBS Sunday Morning that she felt incredibly hurt and betrayed upon learning she had been cut out of Ocasek’s will.
Write to Sylvia Varnham O’Regan at so@therealdeal.com
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the location of the number-one contract at second mention. It is Beekman Street, not Beekman Place.