The childhood home of Beastie Boy member Mike D — and that of his art-collecting mother Hester Diamond, who died in 2020 at the age of 91 — has hit the market for $19.5 million.
The New York Times is reporting the apartment located at 300 Central Park West in the famed, twin-towered El Dorado co-op, is a duplex cobbled together from three different apartments since the early 1980s.
Located on the 18th and 19th floors of the south tower, it lays out over 6,300 square feet — with 800 additional square feet of terrace space — and features six bedrooms and seven-and-a-half baths.
Hester Diamond used much of that space to show off her art collection, which included paintings and sculptures from such revered artists as Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, according to the report.
The apartment’s main entrance on the 19th floor opens to a large foyer that leads to a study and a 29-by-22-foot living room, both with doors to a wraparound terrace. Down a long galley off the foyer is an eat-in kitchen with stainless-steel cabinetry, a pantry, a formal dining room with an china closet, and a large bedroom suite, which also has a terrace, a full bathroom, powder room and a dressing room.
The remaining bedrooms are downstairs, connected by a curved staircase. Two of those bedrooms have access to terrace. Some of them have more recently been used as a fitness room, library, home office, and music room. There is also a laundry room and staff quarters on the floor.
Original architectural elements such as high ceilings, oak floors, plaster moldings and oversize windows are located throughout the home which has upgraded central air-conditioning and dehumidification and lighting systems.
The Diamond family moved into the building as renters in the 1960s and bought in when it was converted to condos in 1982, when their original duplex was purchased along with an adjoining apartment one floor above. It was enlarged in 2009 when adjacent 18th-floor apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms was purchased and incorporated into the home.
Michael Diamond hit it big with his rap band the Beastie Boys in the mid-1980s, with hits such as “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party),” “No Sleep till Brooklyn,” and “Intergalatic.”
[New York Times] — Vince DiMiceli