A Chelsea condominium dubbed the “Vision Machine” — which was featured on the reality TV show “Million Dollar Listings” and is home to “Fraser” star Kelsey Grammer — is actually a poorly built eyesore, residents are griping.
And one unit owner is leading the charge to fight the building’s sponsor, Cape Advisors, over a whopping $8 million assessment to make up for shoddy workmanship on the 7-year-old building.
Gale Hattan is trying to convince her neighbors to protest the fee — the allotment for her two-bedroom is $120,000 over nine months — to repair cracked concrete on the windowed facade of 100 11th Ave., spruce up the spartan lobby and fix rusting bolts.
Hattan, who is retired, says she cannot afford to stay in her 10th-floor pad, which she bought for $3.5 million last year.
“I love the building,” she said, “but I don’t have the money.”
In addition to Grammer, the glassy 23-story high-rise is home to New Museum creator Allan Schwartzman and retired tech honcho Larry Mueller.
The problems, confirmed by a recent engineering report, have driven residents like Barbara Dente to put her $2 million, one-bedroom on the market, and celebrity photographer Todd Eberle to complain about leaky ceilings and rusty beams.
Hattan, 65, said the promised gardens by the pool are just a mix of fake and real ivy and the advertised high-end tile and lighting were swapped out for Sheetrock and fluorescent tubes.
“It was supposed to be a luxury building,” she said. “When I bought my apartment I thought I was getting the whole package, the Jean Nouvel building that was advertised.”
Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Nouvel has also been open about his criticism of Cape Advisors, telling The New York Times in 2010 that the developers went “off course” because they wanted to “complete the building as inexpensively as possible.”
Cape Advisors controls the condo’s board and thus has the power to set fees.
Steven Sladkus, one of the city’s top real-estate lawyers, called the magnitude of the assessment “preposterous if it’s to address issues that are the sponsor’s responsibility.”
A rep for Cape Advisors did not return calls for comment.