UES Townhouse Wants Additional $57M After Just 5 Years

Is New York City the lawless Wild, Wild West of real estate? Some sellers seem to think so. An Upper East Side townhouse that sold for just shy of $20 million in 2010 is back, and it's asking a whopping $77 million. That's right, $57 million more than it sold for just five years ago. Did the townhouse undergo a major renovation that culminated in Baccarat crystal windows, ceilings adorned with gold leaf, and chandeliers purchased from the collection of Baron de Redé? Nope. Nothing like that. The townhouse at 12 East 63rd Street is being delivered as an "architect-ready 'blank canvas,'" as per its listing. Believe it.

[UPDATE: A rep for the project has reached out to clarify that the listing was erroneously uploaded on StreetEasy. The townhouse has in fact undergone some major changes over the past five years. As per a press release, "The Residence has been totally restructured and rebuilt by Canadian architect Armand Dadoun," with interior design by Pierre Yvves Rochon. Further details on the updated residence are included below. Curbed regrets the error.]

What is this madness? A deep dive into the Curbed archives sheds a little bit of insight onto the buildings past,

In 2005 a developer bought the down-on-its-luck townhouse at 12 East 63rd Street for $8.8 million, slapped a new limestone facade on the building and aimed to sell it off as luxury condos. Costs went up, the market went down, and now the whole building is for sale as "architect-ready" raw space priced at $24.95 million after a recent 13% chop. Well, it did get a new elevator. Property records show that the townhouse traded for $8.6 million in 2005 to Altosa, LLC, who turned around and sold it off to it's current owner, Greenfield Properties II, LLC, for $19.66 million in 2010. To make matters even more unbelievable, it seems like Greenfield's been sitting on their hands for the past five years. The listing text for the townhouse is a copy and paste job from its 2010 listing, meaning that the additional $57 million doesn't even come at the expense of new listing text, let alone, it seems, upgrades to the building.

[UPDATE: The townhouse has been updated to include a basement spa with a 20-foot swimming pool, a gym, eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, three half-baths, a three-story greenhouse, an elevator-accessible rooftop with a "proud Tuscan portico made of spanish cedar", and top-of-the-line amenities like house-wide radiant heated floors, Creston A/V systems, Creston lighting systems, Creston architectural shading system, Creston HVAC system, a burglary deterent system, and a keyless entry system, amongst others.]

· Listing: 12 East 63rd Street [StreetEasy]
· All 12 East 63rd Street coverage [Curbed]