(Andrew Toth)
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Hell hath no fury like a co-op board president scorned.
Upset that the sellers of a sprawling penthouse apartment with eye-popping panoramic views spurned her lowball offer, 1107 Fifth Ave. board president Maureen Klinsky has set out to sabotage their $27.5 million deal with someone else, court papers say.
Klinsky abruptly decided that the full-floor apartment’s prime selling point — a private wraparound terrace with city and Central Park views — can be used by everyone in the building to get onto a newly proposed roof deck.
The estate of Monique Uzielli says that’s not fair and that’s not legal — her lease held that the terrace and the roof were private.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the estate noted that the board’s moves came after it turned down Klinsky’s $21 million offer on the apartment they had on the market for $29.5 million.
“The timing is no mere coincidence. Rather, Klinsky, aided and abetted by other board members . . . is abusing her authority as the president of the board to prevent the sale from closing so she can purchase the penthouse for an amount substantially below market value, or damage the estate for rejecting her offers,” the suit says.
The estate wants $5 million in damages — and a court order declaring that the terrace is private.
While Uzielli’s 4,180-square-foot, 10-room apartment is spectacular, the terrace is the crown jewel — at 4,870 square feet, it’s larger than the interior living space and one of the largest in the city, the suit says.
While the board approved the sale to the unidentified buyer in April, it then tried to revoke their approval unless both the buyer and the estate signed a deal making the roof into “a common area accessible to all residents.”
It’s also refused to hand over documents the estate needs to proceed with the closing, the suit says — leaving the sellers worried the deal will fall apart. A hearing on the balcony brouhaha is scheduled for Oct. 4. Klinsky declined to comment through her doorman.
The apartment she currently lives in with her financier husband and their four kids is hardly chopped pâté.
The 4,200-square-foot home is directly below Uzielli’s and was once joined with it as part of a triplex that once belonged to General Foods founder Marjorie Merriweather Post, then the richest woman in the country.
Uzielli, a Swiss art collector, moved in in 1958 and lived there for most of her life until she passed away last year at 98.
The Klinskys bought their apartment in 2003 for $8.5 million and hired designer Eric Clough to renovate it. Without telling his clients, Clough hid a series of mystery messages, games and puzzles in the panels, walls and furniture.
The New York Times wrote an article about the “Rube Goldberg maze of systems and contraptions” in a 2008 article entitled “Mystery on Fifth Avenue.” The article reportedly inspired a movie that’s being developed by “Star Trek” director J.J. Abrams.
Lawyers for the Uzielli estate and the co-op board did not return calls for comment.
Additional reporting by Sabrina Ford