Bullets over Beaches
The new Departures with my feature article on the retail war pitting the venerable Bal Harbour Shops vs. the upstart Miami Design District is now hitting the mailboxes of those lucky souls who get the magazine. You can see the opening art here, but the story itself is locked until the issue goes off sale. […]
House of Outrageous Fortune’s new clothes
The trade paperback edition of House of Outrageous Fortune won’t be out until March, but its outrageously fun new jacket (at right) was just unveiled by online booksellers. Click the image to see it in all its glory. Simultaneously, the latest reader review hit amazon.com. It reads, “If you want to see how the one-percenters […]
Mother of Mercy, is this the end of the Rico condo?
Just as the New York State Senate indicated it is set to consider legislation levying stiff taxes on multi-million-dollar pied-a-terre apartments, the developing brothers, Arthur and Will Zeckendorf, and their starchitect-marketing-marvel Robert A.M. Stern, protagonists of House of Outrageous Fortune, went public with the offering plan for their 15 Central Park West clone, 520 Park […]
Join me on the Runway of Love
I’m speaking at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Sunday at 2 PM on a panel (along with Pat Cleveland, Bjorn Amelan and Carol Mongo) as part of Runway of Love, a celebration of the exhibition on the life and work of American-designer-in-Paris Patrick Kelly. Please come!
Page Six Vaporizes $40 Million
The owners of two apartments in the tower at 15 Central Park West are in for a surprise this morning: Page Six has made their homes–together worth considerably more than $40 million–disappear. Reporting that Robert DeNiro has rented two combined units in the condo, both owned by elderly metals magnate Leroy Schecter, the fabled gossip […]
Back to School
September is coming in like a lion, bringing with it a rush of news. Yesterday, Matt Chaban penned an update in the Times on the doings at River House that this reporter has been covering in Avenue for several years. His big scoop: board president John Allison, architect of the building’s new glasnost policy, has […]
Izzy Does It
Hedgie Israel Englander‘s purchase of the French government’s duplex at 740 Park Avenue for a co-op-record-setting $71,277,500 hit public records over the weekend. Assuming he plans to combine his new palace with his existing one, a flight above, to create a massive triplex, Englander will likely top upstairs moneybags neighbor Stephen Schwarzman , and be […]
Lovebirds Fly
Two of the more colorful residents of Fifteen Central Park West have flown the coop, according to Katharine Clark of the Daily News and public records. Spanx founder Sara Blakely and Marquis Jets co-founder Jesse Itzler have now sold the last of their three 15CPW apartments, this time raking in a $17 million profit. Public […]
Originality isn’t easy
Years ago, a grizzled old reporter told me to always avoid the word original, as there is precious little new under the sun. I was reminded of that when I picked up the current Architectural Digest and spotted an article about fashion designer Francisco Costa‘s house in Bellport, New York. The writer dubbed that south […]
“The people who rule the world live here.”
The House of Outrageous Fortune, 15 Central Park West, was featured on USA Today’s web site this weekend.