In 1913, print magnate William Randolph Hearst bought the entirety of The Clarendon, a 13-story, 62-apartment building, at 137 Riverside Drive for the (these days) painfully modest price of $950,000. One hundred years and some change later, the ask for just a portion of the original penthouse apartment Hearst claimed as his own is asking over 25 times as muchand that's after a new $14 million pricechop. The still-massive penthouse appeared on the market in March 2014 asking $38 million, and was followed up with a $7 million deduction in its ask. Still unable to woo a buyer at that price, the 7,000-square-foot penthouse with 10,000-square-feet of outdoor space has been re-listed for the greatly reduced ask of $24 million. That's a 41 percent deduction in its ask, and a mere nine percent away from admittance into the Pricechopper Hall of Fame.
Here's the story of how this still very large apartment became a not as large apartment: When the Great Depression hit, Hearst foreclosed on The Clarendon penthouse, and his gigantic penthouse was divided into smaller units. It's hard to imagine an apartment much larger than this one, which still boasts seven bedrooms, six-and-a-half bathrooms, and 17 rooms in total, but it existed. The seller is extolled art and furniture collector Benedict Silverman.
· Listing: 137 Riverside Drive PH [Corcoran via StreetEasy]
· William Randolph Hearst's palatial Upper West Side penthouse is now $14M cheaper [NYDN]
· See Photos, Floorplan Of $38M 'Original Hearst Quintuplex' PH [Curbed]
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