Michael Gross

Next stop, Sternville?

Michael Gross — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:03:53 +0000

Robert A.M. Stern long ago put his mark on New York real estate with his monumental set of books about the city’s changing architectural face. Now, he may be about to put his mark on a micro-neighborhood. Following his huge success with 15 Central Park West (subject of my next book for The Free Press), several sources tell me he’s been approached to design a replacement for the white brick non-entity at 220 Central Park South. The focus of a dispute pitting two of the city’s development giants, Extell and Vornado against each other (Vornado owns the site, while Extell owns several nearby and holds the lease on a parking garage below 220), 220 CPS is also a bit of a mystery: No plans for it have been announced or filed. But the rear facade of the building is now scaffolded (see photo) and, as of this morning, crawling with workers, likely signalling its imminent demolition. A new building by Stern, whose updates on classical architecture are well-regarded, would fit in beautifully with Fifteen, just around the corner, with the mid-Century modern landmark 240 Central Park South on the corner of Columbus Circle and, abutting the Vornado site on its CPS side, the 1908 Gainsborough Studios, with its duplex artist’s studios towering over Central Park. Sternville, here we come?

Unreal Estate is “Entirely Un-Put-Downable,” says Darlings author

Michael Gross — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:42:29 +0000

I just bought a new novel called The Darlings by Cristina Alger (at right, from Penguin Press), so it was a double thrill to discover she’d told Jeff Glor of AuthorTalk at cbsnews.com that she is reading Unreal Estate. “I always find his books entirely un-put-downable,” Alger said. I expect to return the compliment soon.

What’s a half-a-million at 740 Park? About one-third the taxman’s bill.

Michael Gross — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:39:40 +0000

So, it turns out that the sale of Courtney Sale Ross‘ double duplex apartment at 740 Park–first reported here–was indeed closed for “about $52 million,” as reported elsewhere–$52.5 million to be precise–and not the asking price of $60 million, as Gripepad initially heard. The buyers, reports Kim Velsey of the New York Observer, are Howard Marks, head of the Oaktree Capital investment firm, and wife Nancy. Gripepad’s favorite fun fact from the official city filing? Real estate taxes on the transaction totalled $1,483,125. That won’t buy you much at 740 Park, but elsewhere in Manhattan, it’s the price of a nice two-bedroom co-op. The Markses also own some prime Los Angeles unreal estate–a sprawling six-bedroom estate on Oakmont Drive in Brentwood, where their neighbors include the conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, another Nancy. Though the Ross-Marks sale price has been touted as setting a record for the highest price paid for a single co-op apartment, it should probably carry an asterisk since it’s really two apartments. The C-line abode once belonged to screenwriter William Goldman, the D-line to William Hale Harkness of the Standard Oil family.

EZ-Money Men

Michael Gross — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:39:01 +0000

Robert Stiller, founder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, was ousted as its chairman this week after stock sales that violated its rules. Stiller and Burt Rubin, his partner in an earlier entrepreneurial venture, EZ-Wider Rolling Paper, were two of the characters who didn’t make the final cut in my history of the Baby Boom, first issued as My Generation, then re-published as The More Things Change, which got a mention in this Bloomberg story on Stiller. Click the links to read my original interviews with Stiller and Rubin.

The Art of the Dis

Michael Gross — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:19:33 +0000

Monday night’s Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum garnered less press attention than in previous years, but from the armchair view of one of the uninvited, the celebrity petting zoo was still a spectacle worthy of Rome. My favorite snapshot was of Marc Jacobs in a lacy see-through Comme des Garcons dress, Colonial-style buckled shoes and a pair of Brooks Brothers boxers (pictured). It reminded me of the night in 1990 when the Met Ball’s current mastermind, Vogue editrix Anna Wintour, turned up at a Giorgio Armani party at MoMA in a bright yellow sequined scuba-style dress by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. Why’d she do that? My guess was that Armani’s command performance–the premiere of a vanity film plunked into the midst of a busy fashion week–annoyed La Wintour. Who knows. And I don’t know what, besides a desire for attention, inspired Jacobs’ jaw-dropping outfit, but more power to him. Other observations: The New York Post front-paged the gala itself, the Times buried its coverage but front-paged an article about Amazon’s sponsorship of this year’s gala and the (surely entirely coincidental) simultaneous supercharging of its effort to compete with brick-and-mortar fashion retailers. Nice advertising, Amazon! My favorite comment on the gala comes at the close of New York Social Diary’s coverage by David Patrick Columbia. “Compared to the house that Vreeland (and the ladies) built,” Columbia writes, comparing the veddy social Met Party of the Year run by Diana Vreeland with today’s, “it may be just another McMansion, but then, that is the American culture of this era. Vogue is now. Anna Wintour is now. She is the Wintour of our discontent, and she’s damned good at it, you have to admit.” Another dis in a designer dress?

Unfit to Serve?

Michael Gross — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:36:23 +0000

What do Rupert Murdoch and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. have in common these days? More than you might think, I propose in “Time’s up, news moguls,” my latest Commentary in Crain’s New York Business. The image, however, is from an old Vanity Fair.

Unreality TV

Michael Gross — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:46:31 +0000

My latest column for Crain’s New York business is about the relative reality of reality tv.

When Scoops Collide

Michael Gross — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:16:11 +0000

My scoop late last week on the sale of Courtney Sale Ross‘s double duplex at 740 Park Avenue has since been
picked up and linked by The New York Observer, curbed, and Business Insider, all of whom were kind enough to credit Gripepad. It was also picked up five days late and a credit short by The Wall Street Journal today. The Journal set the sale price at $52 million, slightly below ask. Eventually, city records will show who got that right. As far as credit goes, as the merchant John Wanamaker once said, “Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.” UPDATE: Alexei Barrionuevo of the New York Times cites Gripepad in tomorrow’s Sunday Real Estate Big Deal column.

740 Park: Back in Business Big Time ($60 Million Worth)

Michael Gross — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:41:07 +0000

Could it be the halo effect of Sandy and Joan Weill‘s unloading their 15 Central Park West penthouse for $88 million? The proverbial little bird chirps that Courtney Sale Ross has finally found a buyer for her double duplex apartment at 740 Park–and got her asking price of $60 million via Kathy Sloane at Brown Harris Stevens, whose listing for it is here. Officially listed last November, though it was available as a semi-secret pocket listing long before that, the apartment is on the 12th and 13th floors of the fabled co-op. Ross and her late husband, Warner Communications mogul Steve Ross combined units in the C and D lines running the length of 71st Street that both use the building’s low-key chic 71 East 71st Street entrance. Sloane could not be reached for confirmation and the buyer is as yet unknown, but ~~if it’s true~~ UPDATE: a second source confirms a deal has been struck so, congratulations are due all around. And then, there’s what this says about Manhattan real estate. “The high end of the market is out of control,” raves a well-connected broker.

From Watergate to…Muppetgate?

Michael Gross — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:38:22 +0000

The selling of Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs, is the subject of my Crain’s New York Business column this week. Is he the next Michael Lewis…or the next Jayson Blair?