Twenty-five years ago, Robert Englander, the chairman and co-owner of Connecticut-based Belvoir Media Group, publisher of a pack of special interest magazines for aviation, gun, boating and pet enthusiasts and the health-conscious, as well as Antiques Roadshow Insider and MaryJanesFarm, edited by an Idaho organic farmer, paid a relative pittance for one of two then-new triplexes plunked atop the 1912 red brick 970 Park (at 83rd Street), then under conversion to a cooperative. Developer Martin J. Raynes bought a nearby building's air rights to allow the addition.
"The market was in the toilet," says a Raynes associate who refuses to divulge how much Englander paid for the ten-room apartment, but says it was "a fraction" of what he's asking now. "And the penthouse was a work in progress. He took a risk, bought it at the end of construction and finished it himself." So you can totally blame him for that truly hideous wallpaper-couch combo in the solarium, and the chintz OD in the bedroom, but the rest of the five-bedroom five-and-a-half bath mansion in the sky with two vast wrap-around terraces ain't bad--even for a $22,500,000 ask that if met, will net the 68-year-old Englander a tidy sum.
According to Warburg's Linda Reiner and Lisa Deslauriers:
On the first floor of this approximately 5,000 square foot home, the entry gallery leads to a sweeping circular staircase, a powder room, and the grand corner living room with a wood burning fireplace and French doors flowing onto the wide approximately 1,450 square foot wrap terrace. An en-suite library and dining room, a grand eat-in kitchen, and a guest room with bath complete this floor. The bedroom floor contains an enormous approximately 400 square foot master with a second fireplace, views of the Central Park, his and her's baths and dressing areas, plus three additional bedrooms and two full baths.
Atop the apartment sits a charming glass-walled den with a wet bar and glorious 1,250 square foot wrap terrace with full views of the Park and the city's skyline.
970 Park Avenue [Warburg]
970 Park [The Upper East Side Book]