High profile art dealer/gallery owner Larry Gagosian’s expensive taste extends to real estate as well.
Gagosian has just closed on the HarknessMansion, the more than 20,000-square-foot townhouse at 4 E. 75th St., for $36.5 million. That might sound like a high price, but it’s actually a stunning $16.5 million less than what private equity titan J. Christopher Flowers paid for the 50-foot-wide townhouse in 2006.
Flowers didn’t sell because he needed the money, insiders say, but because he’s still in the midst of brutal divorce proceedings that have been ongoing for years.
While Flowers spent millions gutting the interior of the mansion, Gagosian will have to spend millions more to give the residence a full renovation, sources say.
Flowers bought the home from banking heir Jacqui Safra, who, with his girlfriend, Jean Doumanian, used to produce Woody Allen movies.
BrownHarris Stevens broker Paula Del Nunzio, who represented Safra, set a recordwith that $53 million deal, which is still the highest price
A pad to Muse over
Actress Jennifer Esposito, who plays a detective on the CBS drama “Blue Bloods” and was briefly married to Bradley Cooper, was spotted touring a two-bedroom, two-bathroom rental at the Chelsea Muse building on 537 W. 27th St.
The unit visited by Esposito, who filed for divorce in 2007 after just four months of marriage to Cooper, is priced at $5,310 a month and offers an open kitchen with stainless-steel appliances. The 28-unit building is less than a block from the High Line.
Listing broker Robin Schneiderman of Halstead Property declined to comment.
Next act
Actor Frank Whaley, whose credits include “Pulp Fiction,” has put his two-bedroom co-op at 244 W. 23rd St. on the market for $2.395 million. It has terraces with custom lighting and irrigation systems, plus a big, private roof deck.
“It’s almost like a house in the middle of West 23rd Street,” says Whaley, who adds that he’s moving outside the city, with his actress/writer wife, Heather Bucha, and their two children, for more space, a yard and better public schools.
Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Raphael De Niro has the listing.
Hymowitz’s haul
Hedge-fund heavy hitter Gregg Hymowitz, an EnTrust Capital managing partner and a fund-raiser for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has bought an 1850s neo-French Renaissance limestone townhouse on East 64th Street for $23 million.
The five-story, six-bedroom, 7¹/-bathroom residence had a most recent asking price of $29.5 million, down from its $32 million asking price in 2009. The seller is Derek Quinlan, an Irish investor and former tax inspector, who lost money on the townhouse. He bought the mansion for $26.25 million from investment banker Roberto de Guardiola and his socialite wife, Joanne, in 2005.
We hear …
That Town Residential will sponsor the Max Cure Foundation charity event in East Hampton this Saturday.
Sightings
Real estate developer and minority New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner and Bruce Mosler, chairman of global brokerage at Cushman & Wakefield, dining at separate tables at Fresco by Scotto on Tuesday night.