Since Steven Cohen brought out the $100-million-plus big guns with the listing for his One Beacon Court duplex, New York City has seen two additional homes be priced in the same stratosphere, but none of them compare to the latest. The New York Times reports that an absurdly lavish 40-foot wide mansion at 12 East 69th Street will soon be listed for the mindboggling price of $114.07 million. The owners are Vincent and Teresa Violahe, the owner of the Florida Panthers NHL team; she, the president of Maida Vale Designsbought the limestone beauty in 2005 for $20 million, and promptly began a gut-renovation. The listing is not yet live, so we have no interior photos, but the Times gives plenty of appetite-whetting details of the 20,000-square-foot home.
The house has 2,500-square-feet of outdoor space on a three-tiered rooftop deck, and everything except the home's facade, which lost its ornamentation in the early 20th century, has been completely changed. Here now, the 10 best lines and details from the Times story (click through to their site for a look inside):
1) "This sprawling urban fortress, built in 1883, has a service entrance tucked beneath the elegant stone steps of the formal entry, an indoor heated saltwater pool with spa, and a "panic room"/dressing room off the fifth-floor master suite hard-wired for total security."
2) "[The kitchen] is a grandmotherly 40 feet wide, with four mahogany-framed windows overlooking 69th Street, a pizza-primed corner brick oven, brick-and-fieldstone walls, a butcher-block island with a cooktop, multiples of Viking ovens and other premium appliances, and three stone sinks. "
3) "The [kitchen] floors are made from reclaimed railroad ties 'sliced like bologna.'"
4) "She went on worldwide shopping sprees to find precise shades of Venetian onyx (even the elevator is onyx) and other decorative finishes, and visited Versailles so that she could replicate its grandeur in her 900-square-foot dining room."
5) "She recently installed the finishing touches in the duplex library — a ceiling mural painted by an artist from County Cork, Ireland, and a two-story rendition of Kipling's poem "If," hand-stenciled by an artisan who has designed custom Christmas cards for the White House and the Vatican."
6) "The grand staircase of Italian granite has a custom-carved mahogany banister, and many of the walls are decorated with gold-leaf filigree."
7) "The sitting area in the 850-square-foot grand hall/living room has coffered ceilings trimmed with gilded molding, a walnut marquetry floor and an imposing fireplace of Brazilian travertine."
8) "On the lower levels, which house a family room, a recording studio, a gym, a sauna and a pool, Ms. Viola recreated a tableau from her childhood: an intimate media room with red velvet recliners, flocked damask walls, and a balcony reminiscent of her favorite theater in Queens."
9) "With winter pending, the notion of going home to a showplace where the pampering begins on the sidewalk — both it and the exterior staircase are heated, as are the onyx floors in the foyers on the parlor level — could prove irresistible."
10) Paul Anand of the Corcoran Group said, "We don't think people who are looking for something of this size in this neighborhood are going to be afraid of the price."
So why leave such a magnificent place? Owning a professional sports team means you should probably leave near that team, so they are moving to South Florida.
· Upper East Side Mansion: Lavish on Every Level [NYT]
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