The board president of a luxury East 53rd Street condominium blocked a mother and daughter from landscaping their penthouse terrace because he didn’t approve of their “lifestyle,” according to a $1 million discrimination lawsuit.
International antiques dealer Ariane Dandois, 70, and her daughter, Ondine de Rothschild, 35, scooped up the duplex penthouse at 310 E. 53rd St. in 2006 for $12.9 million.
The condo developer approved plans to turn their 3,500 square feet of outdoor space into an urban oasis with plantings, sculptures and patios.
But when the new board president, David Goss, took over in 2009, he halted the project.
“He first asked my mother and I whether we were married,” Rothschild says in the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
“We replied that we were single women. He then asked, ‘Why do two single women need such a large apartment?’ ”
Rothschild said Goss, 65, an asset manager at UOB Global Capital, “then derogatorily and rhetorically questioned my mother asking, ‘You are one of those types of women who works?’ ”
She replied that it is because she works that she can afford the unit.
Dandois auctioned off her antiques collection at Sotheby’s in 2007 for an estimated $16 million.
“Both the board and Mr. Goss strenuously deny the allegations being made and will vigorously defend this matter,” asserted Steven Sladkus, the attorney for the 30-unit building.