Keith Richards Takes Big Hit on Sale of New York City Duplex Penthouse
By Mark David
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – After more than two years on and off the market with prices that started at an in-hindsight wild-eyed $12.23 million and plummeted to a still too cocksure $9.95 million, Keith Richards has at long last sold a terraced duplex penthouse in the historic and historically prestigious heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village for $9 million. The sale of the three- and potentially four-bedroom and four-bathroom aerie surely provided some relief if not likely an iota of satisfaction for the still shredding septuagenarian Rolling Stones guitarist who took a pearl clutching $1.5 million loss, not counting carrying costs, improvement expenses and real estate fees, on the approximately 2,7000-square-foot penthouse he and his former model wife Patti Hansen picked up in 2014 for $10.5 million.
Renovated several years before Richards and Hanson acquired it by internationally commissioned architect Joe Serrins , the clean lined and approachably modern penthouse is entered through a slim, L-shaped entrance gallery that leads to a light-filled multi-purpose living/dining space that stretches to 47-feet long with open views over Greenwich Village. A cantilevered cabinet hides media equipment in the central living space that also has direct access to two separate terraces while the dining area, with two floor-to-ceiling storage cabinets behind concealed doors, is open over a two-stool snack bar to an efficiently arranged all-white kitchen. A glass slider opens the kitchen to the smallest of the apartment’s three terraces and a spacious, walk-in pantry is discreetly and cleverly tucked under the stairs.
A den or potential bedroom with en suite bathroom can be closed off from the living room by a sliding wall panel while the main floor master suite offers two fitted walk-in closets and a windowed bathroom with a two-sink vanity, a two-person soaking tub and glass-fronted steam shower that will most definitely accommodate two people. A staircase with super-luxe leather-wrapped brass handrail climbs to the second floor where a study/family room is flanked by a pair of good-sized bedrooms, each with built-in storage and shelving, a walk-in closet and an en suite bathroom.
The dignified and artsy Art Deco tower, just above Washington Square Park and completed in 1927, has long attracted well-to-do showbiz types. Brian De Palma keeps at least two, non-contiguous units in the building; Tim Burton owns a two-unit combination duplex near the top of the 27-story tower; two-time Emmy winner Blythe Danner has a two-unit combination on one of the higher floors; and, earlier this year, two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange paid $3.3 million to acquire the two-bedroom and two-bathroom mid-floor apartment directly above a three-bedroom spread she’s owned since 2005 when she and now former partner Sam Shepard bought it for $3.4 million.
Even without the costly to maintain penthouse in lower Manhattan that carries mouth-drying monthly maintenance fees of almost $8,800, Richards and Hansen still preside over a heavy-duty, high-maintenance portfolio of international properties that includes: An almost eight-acre compound secreted in the woods about 60 miles outside of New York City near Weston, Connecticut; An historic manor house about 90 miles outside of London in the West Sussex village of West Wittering that Richards has owned since the 1960s; And a resort-style Caribbean compound of nearly two oceanfront acres on prestigious and private Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos.
exterior image: Nicholas Strini for Property Shark ; listing photos and floor plan: Douglas Elliman
