Heath Ledger’s last known residence is officially for rent.
The loft apartment in SoHo where the “Dark Knight” co-star died in January – and where Mary-Kate Olsen’s bodyguards curiously arrived before the medics – has been spiffed up and listed for $26,000 a month.
In February, we reported the place was being quietly shopped around – for more than the $22,000 that Ledger paid – just a few weeks after his demise.
“You don’t wait around in a hot rental market like this,” said one broker at the time. “As ghoulish as it sounds, people will rent that place in a heartbeat.”
Or, perhaps not.
Ledger began renting the fourth-floor unit at 419-421 Broome St. last September after finishing his Joker role. It includes three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, an office, a laundry room, a gourmet kitchen and an 80-square-foot balcony. Also featured are 15-foot tin ceilings, exposed brick walls and a wood-burning fireplace.
Instead of a doorman, the five-unit cast-iron building uses an audio/visual intercom system with a key-locked elevator.
Calls to Corcoran Group listing broker Darren Kearns were not returned. The owner of the building is Donald Burns, who also could not be reached.
On a cheerier note, the penthouse unitabove Ledger’s rental, featured in the Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant sleeper “Music and Lyrics,” is no longer available. It sported a $70,000 monthly price tag.
Yes, Sir
Manhattan House will become home to British nobility and sports royalty. We hear that Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of England’s Manchester United Football Club and former boss of David Beckham, has signed a contract to buy a three-bedroom penthouse with two terraces at the condo conversion at 200 E. 66th St.
The penthouse in the 20-floor, five-tower complex, where prices have hit upwards of $2,700 per square foot, measures just under 3,000 square feet.
The deal comes just as the state attorney general has approved what is the country’s most expensive condo conversion.
Dolly Lenz, the sales and marketing agent for Manhattan House, would not confirm the Ferguson deal. But she did say that most of the residences initially for sale are spoken for and that a second offering of new apartments will be launched in September.
Nice change of place
Developer Janna Bullock has switched from townhouses to apartments – well, at least in one case.
The Russian-born blonde, who’s turned a nice profit transforming some of the Upper East Side’s scruffier mansions into showplaces, has bought a brand-new apartment at the Plaza for $8.78 million.
She’s just closed – under a limited liability corporation – on a sixth-floor, three-bedroom, three-bath condo.
Bullock is currently building an eco-friendly, 8,000-square-foot townhouse on the East 62nd Street site where deranged Dr. Nicholas Bartha committed suicide by blowing up his multimillion-dollar home in July 2006, shortly before he was supposed to turn over its title to his estranged wife. Bullock paid $8.3 million for the site.
1-BR, but it’s Giant
Still-retired Michael Strahan has just paid $1.664 million for a TriBeCa apartment.
According to city records, the former New York Giant has picked up a one-bedroom, two-bathroom condo at 25 Murray St.
The Wall Street Journal first reported last week that Strahan had bought a TriBeCa apartment, which he’ll use as a pied-a-terre, but did not report an address and gave only a price range.
According to the Corcoran Group listing details, the mid-floor loft features exposed brick, 14-foot ceilings, a living room with oversized windows, an eat-in kitchen and red oak floors throughout.