By: Marty Raminoff

A rare treasure of a garden, which is so hard to find in Soho apartments, has become the source of contention, conflict and a pair of lawsuits.

As reported by the NY Post, a lawsuit was filed last week by a real estate executive saying that his neighbors have been on a relentless quest to claim the garden for themselves.  The neighbor is none other than Nikolai Fraitureo — the musician best known as the bassist for the band The Strokes, and his wife Ilona.  In 2017, Toby Dodd of Cushman & Wakefield, and his wife, Julie de Pontbriand, paid $3.3 million for the ground floor apartment in SoHo at 42 King St, which boasted a private yard in the back.  Later on, the couple additionally purchased the garden next door at 44 King St., along with a small ground-floor room in that building, paying $300,000, as per court papers related to the lawsuit.

Then in 2019, Fraiture, and his wife, Ilona, purchased a ground-floor unit at 44 King and the basement in that building.  The first lawsuit came when Fraiture sued Dodd and Pontbriand in 2021, claiming that the units they held were illegally combined, and the situation was prevented them from making their own intended renovations.  Basically, the two buildings’ ground floors have a common backyard, and there is a 45-by-40-foot outdoor area which is being contested by the two couples.  Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Pontbriand filed their own lawsuit last week, saying the “real value” of the property is that secret garden which is so unusual in Manhattan. The outdoor space was even praised in The New York Times for its “treasure-like quality,” Dodd and Pontbriand say in court papers. “The Fraitures’ motivation is simple: the Dodds have exclusive rights over the building’s garden and the Fraitures want it for themselves,” the second suit alleges.

Fraitureo, 44, co-founded the American rock band “the Strokes” in 1998, and went on to release six studio albums with them.  In 2021, the Strokes won a Grammy for best rock album for “The New Abnormal”.  An attorney for the Fraitures told The Post that calling the Dodds the owners of 44 King Street’s private garden is a “false assumption.”  “Think of it this way: if I told you that I had a bridge to sell and you bought it from me, would that make you the owner of that bridge? No, it would not,” said Bradley Silverbush, Fraiture’s lawyer. “Based upon everything I have seen to date, I believe that the Dodds’ claim of ownership is, at best, questionable.”

The Fraitures firm desire to own the garden at 44 King has made life miserable at the two buildings, the Dodds claim. “Other residents have commented that prior to the Fraitures’ arrival, 44 King was a very pleasant community in which to live, but the Fraitures have created an unsettling, tension filled environment for all,” according to the lawsuit, which was initially reported by the Real Deal.

Per the Post, in response to the Fraitures lawsuit, a Manhattan judge accepted the Dodds’ request to prevent the Fraitures from forcing them out of 44 King, until a court appearance can be held next month. “The Dodds have never wavered on their unwillingness to part with the Garden. … Rather than accept that reality, the Fraitures launched a still-ongoing scheme to force the Dodds out of 44 King and take the Garden for themselves,” the Dodds’ lawsuit alleges.