SELLERS: Giraldo and Erica Rivera
LOCATION: Edgewater, N.J.
PRICE: $3.75 million
SIZE: 2 houses, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 2 half bathrooms (total)
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Just last week we learned that loved and loathed television icon Geraldo Rivera and his fifth wife, Erica (Levy) Rivera, dropped $5.6 million on a high-floor condo in a full-service Manhattan highrise where they already own a slightly smaller unit on a lower floor; this week, we learn the muckraking broadcast journalist and tabloid television pioneer also has his riverfront compound in Edgewater, N.J., up for sale on the open market with an asking price of $3.75 million. The two-residence compound is part of a discreet and little-known cooperative-style enclave cleaved to the steep bank of the Hudson River just below the George Washington Bridge. Although it does appear that one of the houses was acquired in 1998 for $350,000, property records aren’t explicit about exactly when or how much Mister Rivera paid for either the two homes that are being sold together even though they’re separated by a narrow lane.
The mullet-style main house has a low profile, single-story street façade that belies its four stories that step down the steep hillside to the river’s edge. A loft-like main living/dining and kitchen space on the uppermost entry-level has a partly glass ceiling and has been custom-fitted as if it were a yacht with built-in dining banquette, lacquered and wood-paneled wall treatments, custom built-ins and a compact but well-stocked galley-style kitchen. Several sets of glass doors open to a wrap-around deck with an unobstructed and undeniably thrilling sweep from the George Washington Bridge, over the Hudson and all the way down the west side of Manhattan to Battery Park City.
There are, according to online marketing materials, three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in the main residence including a mid-level master suite with wall-to-wall leopard pattern carpeting, what looks like a pretty fab faux-bois wall treatment and wrap-around windows and glass sliders that open to another riverside deck with more boat-like river, bridge and city views. A dock-level office space offers a convenient kitchenette and — the dock itself, which can park at least two watercraft, is equipped — much to this jaded property gossip’s surprise — a plunge-sized above-ground swimming pool.
The main house is being sold with a guesthouse residence located directly across that lane that, our research reveals, was listed as an unfurnished rental six or so months ago at a rate of $3,500 per month. Listing details from the time show the two-story house has three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and an attached two-car garage plus additional off-street parking. Like the main house’s main living space, the open-plan living/dining space has honed marble floors and an open, center-island kitchen with black granite countertops and a built-in television. The house also features, per listing details, a river-view deck off the main living space, a tile-floored billiard room and a library.
Mister Rivera gave a televised home tour in 2010 during which he said the compound comprises four structures over a total of 10 stories. As best as we can parse, three of those four structures are for sale — main house, guest house and dock-level office. The fourth, a separate and fully self-contained residence that he called “the pool house,” sits highest on the hillside across the lane from the guesthouse and has — hence its name — a private swimming pool. The tour shows a large living/dining/lounge space with adjoining kitchen and at least one bedroom as well as a mirror-walled home gym jam-packed with a scary number of exercise contraptions and a two-car garage with concrete walls hung with a whole bunch of artworks by Cheech Marin’s ex-wife Patti Heid. It’s not known to this property gossip if Mister and Missus Rivera have already sold “the pool house” or if they plan to keep it, rent it or sell it in the future. (If any of the children happen to know, be sure to give Your Mama a ringy-dingy.)
Listing photos: The Chen Agency
