Bespoke Loft in Celeb-Favored Soho Building Exudes Jewel-Toned Sophistication

Originally built in the late 19th century as a corset factory, when 30 Crosby Street in New York’s Soho neighborhood was converted to luxury loft condominiums in 2000 it attracted an avalanche of press due to intense interest from a slew of famous folk.

Claudia Schiffer, Rosie O’Donnell, Mike Piazza, Cindy Crawford, and Denzel Washington all stopped by for a peek and poke around the vast lofts that boast 12-foot ceilings, massive windows, and wood-burning fireplaces. Liv Tyler, then 23, signed a contract to buy a $2.5 million unit but backed out of the deal after all the publicity around the building, which included being parodied as the ultimate celebrity address in Ben Stiller’s modeling industry send-up “Zoolander.”

Two of the celebs who went ahead and sealed multimillion-dollar deals for one of the boutique building’s 13 units were Courtney Love, who shelled out $2.6 for a fourth-floor loft, and Lenny Kravitz, who plunked down $8 million for a duplex penthouse. Love unloaded her place in 2006, during a particularly chaotic time in her life and only after she rankled neighbors with some messy behavior, while Kravitz, who at one point leased the penthouse to Nicole Kidman, sold up in 2010 for $12.375 million to Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz.

The much-ballyhooed building’s most recent sale was already more than a year ago, when PayPal president and CEO Dan Schulman paid $8.6 million for a lower-floor unit, and the only unit currently available sits on the fifth floor and carries an $11.25 million asking price.

The owner of the three-bed and three-bath spread, a Scottish-born and Sorbonne-educated marketing and branding guru, acquired the not-quite-4,600-square-foot condo in 2014 for $7.9 million and subsequently transformed it with the expertise of Michael Adams of Adams ID into a sophisticated city home punctuated with bespoke finishes, luxe fabrics and jewel-toned splashes of color.

A key-lock elevator opens directly into the great room, where a gigantic emerald velvet sectional sofa and a couple of chaises covered in paint-splatter upholstery form a cozy seating area alongside a fireplace encased in painted wood paneling. Spanning almost 50 feet with half a dozen humongous windows, the great room also includes an ample dining area along with a sleek kitchen lined in glimmering sapphire cabinets. Next to the kitchen, a sunny east-facing breakfast area is enlivened with a citrine-yellow sofa.

Floor-to-ceiling glass encloses a slender library, where books are carefully arranged by color, while an enclosed pod houses a pint-sized screening room with plush sofas. One of the two guest bedrooms is en suite, the other makes use of a bathroom near the front entrance, and the primary suite incorporates a large fitted walk-in closet and a marble bathroom.

On one of the neighborhood’s cobblestone streets and embellished with metal shutters over the huge windows, the red-brick edifice offers its few residents a vibrant location along with some choice amenities. There are 24-hour doorman services, a Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz-designed lobby with an integrated Aromatherapy system, climate-controlled private wine storage compartments, and a fireside tasting/dining room.

With taxes and common charges that tally up to about $10,500 per month, the urbane loft condo is available through Edward Hickey at Compass.