Wealthy heiress Libet Johnson has a voracious appetite for husbands and real estate.
Married five times, she has just plunked down at least $48 million for the most expensive townhouse since 2008 and one of the highest ever — the old Vanderbilt mansion at 16 East 69th Street.
The deal is also striking because Johnson did not use a broker.
The neo-Georgian mansion, built in 1881, was previously owned by Roger Barnett, founder of beauty.com and author Sloan Lindemann Barnett, an author and heiress in her own right. Sloan Lindemann Barnett also happens to be a good pal of Johnson’s.
According to The New York Observer, the Barnett family was originally asking an unbelievable $62 million – well above the record and far above what they actually sold it for.
It is a substantial 33 foot wide townhouse considered by many brokers to be a major trophy property. Roger Barnett purchased it in 2001 for $11 million and then hired noted interior designer Peter Marino to do a full-on renovation. Many brokers had shown the property but none reaped the profits of the sale.
The mansion was once owned by Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt, widow of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who headed New York Central Railroad.
The sale comes shortly after a Russian paid $48 million for a condo at the Plaza hotel — the highest price ever paid for a condo, and it wasn’t even a full floor, noted brokers at the time. But it was moneyman J. Christopher Flowers who plunked down the most money ever for a place to live in New York City: $53 million for an East 75th Street townhouse back in 2006. In 2007, 15 East 64th St. sold for $50 million and in 2008, 14 East 67 Street sold for $49 million, according to real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller.