Bride-to-be Jessica Simpson, 31, says she won’t marry her fiance, NFL player Eric Johnson, until after the birth of her baby. (She told “Entertainment Tonight” that she doesn’t want to be a “hormonal Bridezilla.”) But that hasn’t stopped Jess from schlepping around the city looking for a new home with her sister, Ashlee, and Ashlee’s adorable son, Bronx Mowgli, in tow.
So far her house hunt has included Soho Mews at 311 Broadway, where Justin Timberlake owns a $6.56 million penthouse. The singer also looked at a $25,000-a-month, three-bedroom, 3 1/2-bathroom townhouse rental at 55 Thompson, but a mystery renter scooped up the unit this week.
Simpson’s broker, Julie Zelman from Rothschild Realty Associates, could not be reached for comment.
Greenwich grandeur
Gary Rosenbach, co-founder of the disgraced Galleon Group with convicted insider trader Raj Rajaratnam, is trying to unload his $13.99 million Greenwich estate. Rosenbach, who has since formed Rockledge Capital Management LLC (and was not charged with any wrongdoing in the insider-trading scandal at Galleon), is selling his home at 21 Midwood Drive.
The Connecticut estate, which sits on 2 1/2 acres, includes a heated pool, cascading waterfall and poolside cottage and three-car garage. The four-bedroom stone manor includes a front-to-back entry hall, six fireplaces and lots of entertaining space, including a “banquet-sized” dining room.
Lee Fleischman of Greenwich Fine Properties is the exclusive agent.
Felder in seven heaven
Wall Street is making a splash downtown. Eric Felder, who once worked at Lehman Brothers before moving over to Barclays, just paid a whopping $7.5 million for a seventh-floor apartment — or $2,798 a square foot — at 7 Hubert St.
The seller is another Wall Street moneyman, James T. Pappas, and his better half, dentist Adriana Leone.
‘Tall’ ceilings for Starbucks scion
Venture capitalist and coffee czar Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, just bought a $4.6 million Greenwich Village condo for his son, Jordan, a sports columnist at the Huffington Post, and Jordan’s bride, Breanna, who works at Edelman, a New York public relations firm. The 20-something couple got hitched at Schultz’s East Hampton estate this past summer.
The fourth-floor, 2,266-square-foot home, with three bedrooms and 2 1/2 bathrooms, was listed at $4.8 million and was only on the market for a week. It’s housed at 173 MacDougal, a Romanesque Revival building created around 1890 and a block away from Washington Square Park. The unit has 10 1/2-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, a glass-enclosed limestone fireplace and multiple walk-in closets. But is there a coffee maker in the kitchen? If not, there’s a Starbucks just around the corner on Sixth Avenue.
Listing broker Holly Parker, of Prudential Douglas Elliman, declined to comment.
Good fit for Jordache
Ariel Nakash, a vice president of Jordache Enterprises, and his wife, Vivian, just closed on an apartment at 857 Fifth Ave. for around $6.5 million. Ariel’s father, Ralph, together with his brothers Joseph and Avi, owned retail stores before launching Jordache. The home was first listed in 2008 for $11.25 million. Its last asking price was $6.75 million.
The third-floor, full-floor unit has three bedrooms, 5 1/2 bathrooms and a terrace that faces Central Park. It comes with a private elevator landing, a formal dining room and a large windowed kitchen.
The sellers were Joe W. Bratcher III and Elzbieta Szoka, of Host Publications.
We hear . . .
That “Brothers & Sisters” TV matriarch, baby-faced Sally Field, is at the top of her game in real estate, having bought a $2.55 million unit at 2 Horatio St. on the 14th floor . . . That make-up mogul Bobbi Brown closed on her penthouse at 245 Tenth Ave. for $4.8 million. The stunning unit has more than 2,000 square feet of private roof terrace . . . That the buyers of Brooke Astor’s co-op at 778 Park Ave. are Daniel Sundheim, a 34-year-old investment portfolio manager of a “long-short” equity fund at Viking Global, and his wife, Brett, 32. They have two nursery-age kids. Friends tell Gimme Shelter that the couple plans to renovate the $21 million pad — it was asking $46 million in 2008 — and make it more family- and playdate-friendly.