Film Producer Amy Pascal Doubles Down on Gloria Vanderbilt’s Beekman Place Co-op

After just three weeks on the market, and an unusually long four-month contract period, the longtime New York City home of late and legendary American aristocrat Gloria Vanderbilt has been sold by the youngest of her three surviving sons, veteran CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. The buyer is powerhouse film producer Amy Pascal, who wanted the place with enough fervor that she paid $2.5 million, more than twice its $1.125 million asking price.

The former chair of Sony Pictures, who now heads up Pascal Pictures, where she produced the superhero blockbuster “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and received Oscar nominations for “The Post” and “Little Women,” shelled out another $950,000 for a ground-floor apartment that Vanderbilt used as an art studio, which brought her total outlay to almost $3.5 million. And no wonder Pascal loved it so much. It’s as unique and ebullient as her magnificent mane of kinky curly hair.

Jam-packed and flamboyantly colorful, the two-bedroom and three-bath co-operative unit, just east of Midtown, in the tony Beekman neighborhood, exudes a distinctively uptown sort of bohemian glamour and showcases Vanderbilt’s myriad collections. A trove of antique paintings features many of Vanderbilt, including a full-length portrait in which she’s wearing a yellow Fortuny gown she reportedly told Cooper she wanted to be cremated in, and a tight cluster of minty-green Jadeite boxes and vases stand out against the Chinese red lacquered walls in the entrance hall.

Arched windows add curves and light to the living room’s eclectic mishmash of bold patterns and, as noted in the New York Post, the first to report on the notable transaction, the fireplace in the mirrored, silver-leafed and red-lacquered dining room sports a hand-written quote by Albert Einstein: “The distance between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”

Just inside the front door, the compact service wing includes a utilitarian kitchen with breakfast area and walk-in pantry, along with a laundry room and bathroom, while the bedrooms, each with a private bath, are quietly tucked off an L-shaped hallway.

Designed by George F. Pelham and built in 1931, the 38-unit pet-friendly boutique building offers residents a stunningly maintained lobby with full-time doormen, a furnished courtyard and a gym outfitted with Peloton bikes.

The great-great granddaughter of railroad baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, the heiress and fashion designer — she pioneered the premium denim market when, in the 1970s and ‘80s, her name and a swan logo was prominently stitched onto the back pockets of skin-tight jeans — bought the two units in 1997 and lived there until she died, at 95, in 2019.

The apartment was listed with Ileen G. Schoenfeld and Aracely Moran of Brown Harris Stevens.

Pascal, who has numerous high-profile projects lined up, including a couple “Spider-Man” pics and a Madonna-directed biopic about Madonna, has long made her primary home in Los Angeles, where she presides over a sprawling, nearly 9,000-square-foot mansion enshrouded in bamboo, in Brentwood’s sleepy and expensive Mandeville Canyon, which she bought nearly 25 years ago for close to $2 million.