NYC Penthouse on Billionaires’ Row Sold for $72M in Priciest Home Sale

By: Marty Raminoff

The luxury tower at 220 Central Park South made it to the priciest home sale list again.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, a full-floor penthouse at the building was sold for $72 million, making it one of the most expensive homes sold in 2022.  The home spans more than 5,000 square feet, with an extra 312-square-foot terrace, as per the building’s offering plan. The three-bedroom home wasn’t officially listed on the market. The buyer’s identity was not publicized. The buyer also forked out another $3 million for a smaller unit in the same building.  The 70-floor posh condo tower on Billionaires Row, which is owned by Vornado Realty Trust and led by Chairman Steve Roth, was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, with interiors by Thierry Despont.  A spokesman for Vornado wasn’t available to comment on the sale. Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group, who leads sales at the building, declined to provide comment to the WSJ.

Completed in 2019, the limestone clad tower at 220 Central Park South holds the record for the most expensive home sale ever in the United States.  That record was set when celebrated hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin purchased a penthouse at the building for $238 million in 2019.  The building was back in the news earlier this year, when billionaire investor Dan Och sold a penthouse in the building for $188 million, making back about double what he paid for the pad in 2019. The buyer was Joseph Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets and co-founder of Alibaba.

The 950-foot-tall condominium skyscraper offers 118 luxury units– mostly duplexes.  The building located on 58th Street, overlooking Central Park, is famed as the 17th-tallest building in New York City. Amenities include a 95-foot swimming pool, squash court, fitness center, spa, board room, club room, a wine cellar, a private restaurant, garage and full-service staff.  The apartments offer luxury top-of-the-line appliances, oversized windows, high ceilings, designer moldings and marble cladding of the kitchen islands and bathrooms.  Details of the interior designs are scant, with the WSJ previously reporting that developer, Vornado, refused to publish renderings of the apartment interiors. The building cost about $1.4 billion in all, replacing a former 20-story, 125-unit apartment building at the site.

The new luxury condos at 220 Central Park South were a big success, generating income and impressive sales for Vornado, even despite the pandemic. Since last year, luxury residential real estate in New York and across the country, fell sharply. The number of Manhattan luxury sales dropped more than 18 percent during the third quarter of 2022, compared to the previous year, as per real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel.  Manhattan’s Median sales price in the luxury matrix (or top 10% of sales) was $5,750,000 in Q3, down 10.9 percent for the quarter.