Joan Collins, former “British sex kitten,” legendary “Dynasty” diva and a bona fide Dame of the British Empire, is getting serious about selling her beloved apartment in Midtown Manhattan. This time around, the newly bare co-op unit is on the market at a reduced price of $2.1 million, as first reported by The New York Times.
Centrally located and just a hop-skip from Central Park, the 87-year-old icon’s former home at the white-glove Dorchester building measures about 2,200 square feet with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a whopping sixteen closets, the latter a major selling point for the wardrobe-mad showbiz legend who said that little detail helped seal the deal for the flat.
Collins and her current husband Percy Gibson first purchased the spread in 2002, when they were newlyweds — Collins’ fifth marriage, if anyone is counting — so it naturally holds sentimental value for the May-December pair even though it was never used as their primary residence. During the almost two decades they owned it, they made several enhancements to the space, including refinishing the oak floors and covering the walls in acres of mirrors. When the always glamorously decked out dame blew through town she would host grand soirees in the apartment, with star-studded guest lists that included her late sister, novelist Jackie Collins, Michael Feinstein and the late Diahann Carroll. The couple was thinking about keeping their former love pad, but rumor has it they’ve been spending most of their tim in London and soaking up the sun at the their vacation home in, of course, glitzy Saint-Tropez.
The spacious and well-maintained (if dated and fairly featureless) apartment was initially listed in 2011 for $2.895 million, but didn’t get any serious biters. Since then, it’s been on and off both the sales and rental markets with increasingly steep price cuts. The apartment is entered via a slender entrance hall that leads to the combination living and dining room where gleaming chevron pattern wood floorboards cover the length of the 31-foot-wide room. A series of oversized windows look out over always busy 57th Street, and, since the flat is located on just the eighth floor of the 20-story post-war apartment house, the head-on views of buildings across the street are, well, let’s just say less than breathtaking.
Like most Manhattan kitchens, the flat’s decidedly retro 1980s unit — check the melamine cabinets and mirrored backsplash! — is a tight squeeze and could certainly use a modern update. Indeed, a quick check of the floor plan shows it could easily be opened up to the living and dining area to make it feel less cramped. However, it does have updated stainless steel appliances and an almost comically large refrigerator that make it perfectly serviceable without doing a thing.
Two of the bedrooms feature traditional parquet flooring and windows that look out into the street, while the primary suite is luxuriously roomy — it was once a studio apartment — and contains Collins’ favorite aspect of her former residence, a walk-in closet. The third bedroom is well suited as a home office or den with floor-to-ceiling built-ins.
In keeping with the glitzy 1980s theme of the kitchen, the bathrooms are heavily mirrored, perhaps to make up for the fact that two of them are windowless. The bathroom in the primary suite has a glamorous, Art Deco-esque style with Robin egg blue tile work, a delicate light fixture and a black quartz countertops, all of which are reflected ad infinitum in the mirror-covered walls. Though also mirrored to dizzying effect, another of the bathrooms is a bit more tame with classic black and white tile work and a matching black and white toilet!
Collins is, of course, no stranger to the real estate game. In addition to homes in London, Saint-Tropez and New York City, she and Gibson keep a spacious three-bedroom condo in a luxury high-rise along L.A.’s Wilshire Corridor that she bought in 2017 for $2.1 million, around the same time she took in $4.4 million on the sale of a high-floor condo at the star-studded Sierra Towers building in West Hollywood.
The listing is held by Carolyn Weiner-Trapness for Brown Harris Stevens.