BUYER: Meredith Vieira
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: last listed at $8,550,000
SIZE: (approx.) 2,500 square feet, 3-4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: The lady property gossip at the New York Post was the first Your Mama heard to let the cat out of the proverbial bag about veteran broadcast journalist and game show host Meredith Vieira being in contract to acquire a terraced penthouse atop New York City’s illustrious Eldorado building on Central Park West. As of this morning transaction paperwork with a stated sale price had not been made publicly available to the celebrity real estate digerati but online resources do reveal the house-sized aerie was first listed in September 2013 at a rose-tinted $10.5 million and last listed at the significantly lower but still unequivocally expensive $8.55 million.
The three- to four-bedroom and four full bathroom penthouse, which Your Mama crudely and unscientifically calculated measures in at about 2,500-square-feet, was recently renovated, as per listing details, but never occupied. A private elevator landing has timeless casement-style French doors that lead out to the north-facing terrace while the generously proportioned living and dining rooms, somewhat uncomfortably divided by a double-sided fireplace, face sunny south with 11-foot ceilings, herringbone pattern wood floors, onyx window sills and direct access to an approximately 550-square-foot-plus terrace.
The debatably compact eat-in kitchen is efficiently arranged and expensively equipped with high-grade appliances and a built-in window seat. Behind the kitchen, in and area that Your Mama would bet both our long-bodied bitches, Linda and Beverly, were originally configured as staff quarters, the floor plan shows a laundry space, a long bank of built-in closets and storage cabinets, and a petite office with built-in bookshelves on at least three walls. The office has an attached bathroom that, while attractively private and windowed, appears in floor plan to this boozy property gossip to be barely wide enough for a runway model to turn her slim hips around.
A closet-lined hall off the dining room leads to a not quite equal pair of guest/family bedrooms; Both have direct access to the dynamite terrace that wraps around the penthouse’s north, east and west sides but only one has a private en suite. The master bedroom, just off the entry in the living room — hardly and ideal location for privacy — has at least three closets plus a dressing area that does double duty as the suite’s entry vestibule. There’s a windowed bathroom with separate tub and shower off the dressing room/entry vestibule and a reasonably sized bedroom with loads of built-in cabinetry and, like the other bedrooms, direct access to north-side terrace.
The elegantly twin-towered Emory Roth-designed apartment house has long been home to high-profile people and was last splashed across all the celebrity gossip columns just a couple of weeks ago when Bruce Willis hoisted his low floor spread, which he bought from U2 bassist Adam Clayton in early 2013 for $8.695 million, on the market with an asking price of $12,995,000. Lest anyone think his asking price is ludicrously higher than his purchase price less than two years ago, recognize that Willis extensively remodeled the place and — believe it or not — is already in contract to be sold for an unknown amount to an unidentified buyer.
Our research shows the beaver-busy morning and daytime chat show veteran — she currently pops up as a correspondent on “Entertainment Tonight,” sometimes sits in for Piers Morgan when he’s away and hosts a syndicated and eponymous talk show among other dribs and drabs — continues to own the bucolic 2.08-acre estate in the affluent Hudson River-side enclave of Irvington, NY, that she picked up back in June 2000 for $2,100,00 and over the summer of 2012 she shelled out $1.15 million for a pied-a-terre on a long cul-de-sac above Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills with distant but direct views of the Hollywood sign, Griffith Observatory and Lake Hollywood.
Listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran
