Lavish living multilevel marketing millionaires JR and Loren Ridinger have rich people problems.
Their company, Marketing America, founded in their Greensboro, N.C. garage in 1992, was mired in a lawsuit that alleges violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and in 2020 an investigation by the nonprofit advertising watchdog organization Truth in Advertising found that the company made hundreds of deceptive claims about the income potential of distributors, which resulted in the company removing about 750 marketing claims from their promo materials and social media sites.
On Christmas eve, their 207-foot yacht Utopia IV, which can be rented at a whopping $505,000 a week and is up for sale at $51.5 million, rear-ended and sank a gas tanker in the Bahamas. The Ridingers were not aboard the six-stateroom and 13-crew luxury liner that was out on charter at the time of the incident. (There were no injuries, thankfully, and various government agencies are investigating and reviewing what impact the tanker’s cargo may have on the environment.)
As if all that isn’t enough to make being stupendously rich seem like kind of a drag, the Ridingers are lined up to lose almost $4.5 million, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses and real estate fees, on a high-floor duplex condo at a much-ballyhooed Jean Nouvel-designed tower in New York City’s artsy Chelsea neighborhood; they scooped the place up in late 2009 for $19.4 million and now have it on the market at just under $15 million.
Taxes and common charges for the mansion-sized condo total more than $32,000 per month, according to listings held by Steve Gold at Corcoran, and residents of the building, defined by its mosaic grid of windows, are afforded a laundry list of creature comforts: full-time doorman and concierge services, an indoor/outdoor pool; a state-of-the-art fitness center; a screening room; on-site parking.
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Image Credit: Christopher Bride; John Cleary Occupying one entire floor and part and another, the curvilinear condo sprawls out over almost 8,400 square feet with four bedrooms and five bathrooms, plus two powder rooms.
Floor-to-ceiling windows provide panoramic Hudson River views over the Chelsea Piers complex, where the Ridinger’s would park their yacht when in town.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy Decadently festooned in a strict palette of black, white, crystal and mirrors, the condo’s style-defying glitzy glamour is set in high gear just inside the front door where a boxy crystal chandelier is emblazoned with the Fendi logo, and a fanciful rococo mirror is hung opposite a photograph of a bare-breasted woman.
Indeed, there might be more chandeliers here than at Versailles. They are not just in the foyer but also in the living room, the dining room — both of them, the kitchen, the bedrooms and, yes, even the bathrooms.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy Two unconventionally shaped side-by-side living rooms together span about 1,300 square feet. The larger has a curved wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that provides colorful views as the sun sets over the Hoboben, N.J., skyline, while the smaller sports an assymetrical array of windows perfectly placed to frame glittery views of Manhattan.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy A huge formal dining area is complimented by a smaller, less formal dining space, while the kitchen shimmers with stainless-steel cabinetry and stainless-steel appliances.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy The condo is set up with two dedicated offices located just off the media lounge. There’s a wet bar for snacks and beverages, and a movie screen drops out of the ceiling in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy Three en-suite guest bedrooms are clustered together at one end of the upper level, and a striking glass and steel staircase curls down from the informal dining area to a lounge area that’s part of the 1,950-square-foot master suite.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy The bedroom is large enough to float a four-poster Lucite bed in the center of the room. The suite also includes at least eight closets and two bathrooms, one of them 30-feet-long with a faceted, jet-black soaking tub and a blingy black and clear crystal chandelier.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy The Miami-based social butterflies, who are known to pal around with Jennifer Lopez and a Kardashian or two, have certainly come a long way from their garage in Greensboro, where records reveal they still maintain a large home that overlooks the manicured greens of the Greensboro Country Club. Nowadays, they maintain snazzy spreads up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy Records indicate they own two other full-floor units in the same New York building as the duplex they’re hoping to sell — they were bought in two contiguous 2014 transactions that totaled $10.9 million — as well as a stately mansion in Greenwich, Conn., that presides over almost 5.5 acres of landscaped grounds, and a multi-parcel compound along one of the most sought after and expensive streets in all of Miami Beach, Fla., where prior to its rear ending of the tanker they could park their giant boat in the backyard.
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Image Credit: StreetEasy