Sunday, 3 February 2013
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $2,495,000
SIZE: (approx.) 1,200 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Looks like multi-Grammy, Golden Globe and Oscar winning singer/songwriter Carly Simon is giving it another go, re-listing her New York City duplex pied-a-terre with an asking price of $2,495,000.
Some of the children who have been hanging around here for a long time may recall that Your Mama first (dissed and) discussed Miz Simon's quirky and quintessentially West Village co-operative apartment way back in June 2008 when she pushed it on the open market with an in-hindsight grievously optimistic price tag of $3,850,000. The listing agent at the time was—not surprisingly—Miz Simon's sister Joanna Simon at Fox Residential. By the time un-sold duplex was taken off the market almost two years later, in the spring of 2010, the price had plummeted to a much lower but still far too rose-tinted asking price of $2,975,000.
In April 2012, for reasons entirely unknown to Your Mama, Miz Simon decided not to re-hire her real estate agent sister and instead engaged the services of high-powered über-agent Raphael De Niro—Robert De Niro's son—at Douglas Elliman who popped her duplex pied-a-terre back on the market with a substantially lower but, alas, still Utopian $2,750,000 asking price. Two and a half months later the price dropped even further to $2,490,000 before it disappeared from the open market.
Miz Simon, bless her real estate heart, jumped back on the merry-go-round last week and heaved her West Village duplex on the open market last week with a third new real estate agent—Corcoran young gun Nick Gavin—who put an ever so slightly and curiously higher asking price of $2,495,000 on Miz Simon's tough to sell West Village digs.
Property records and reports indicate Miz Simon purchased her West Village hideaway in the early 1800s Federal style red brick townhouse in early 2004 for around $1,200,000. She reportedly gut renovated the two floor unit but retained much of the apartment's original details such as the rough-hewn wide plank wood floors, exposed brick and the two wood-burning fireplace, one in the downstairs living room and the other in the upstairs sitting room where Miz Simon has incongruously installed both a baby grand piano and a claw-footed soaking tub.
The apartment is entered on the lower level through a small foyer off of which open a laundry closet and a full bathroom blessed with an actual window. The adjoining living room has a free-standing exposed brick fireplace with blue and white pattern tiles around the firebox. Openings on either side of the fireplace connect through to the renovated trapezoidal kitchen outfitted with open shelving and budget-friendly stainless steel appliances.
A very narrow, open staircase wraps around the kitchen where it arrives at a small landing/dressing area with a trio of small closets. Flanking the above-mentioned sitting room where Miz Simon has a piano and a bathtub—in the same room—are a small (master) bedroom and a compartmentalized and windowed half-bathroom.
Thankfully and—no doubt—much to the pleasure of the listing agent, Miz Simon has thinned some of the furniture, pared back a bit on some of the bric-a-brac and and fabric draping that she seemed so partial to back in 2008. It looked, decoratively, like the sort of Big Apple pied-a-terre Your Mama thought scarf and scrap material loving musicians Stevie Nicks or Steven Tyler might swoon for. But, alas....
Since the very narrow, townhouse-type co-operative building has only two other (quite tiny) units—one of which is owned by a journalist/non-profit executive who was once erroneously romantically linked in the tabloids to presidential mistress Monica Lewinsky—the approximately $2,400 per month maintenance fees for Miz Simon's house seem unusually high for the size of the apartment, especially given that there are no high end conveniences or services—i.e. doormen, fitness center, etc.—available to the small handful of residents. What the duplex does have going for it is it's location on one of the most charming and desirable residential nooks of the once bohemian and now exceedingly gentrified and shockingly expensive West Village.
As far as Your Mama knows, Miz Simon's primary residence is still Hidden Star Hill, the sprawling 25-plus acre Martha's Vineyard, MA, compound near the town of Tisbury that her five-time Grammy winning singer/songwriter ex-husband James Taylor bought in the late 1960s and transferred over to Miz Simon following their 1983 divorce. In addition to an approximately 5,000 square foot main house, the property includes a haphazard collection of several other residences—two of which are occupied by her and Mister Taylor's two adult children—several outbuildings and barns, a swimming pool, tennis court and a small pond.
exterior photo: Kate Lenova for Property Shark (2005)
listing photos and floor plan: Corcoran
