Baba Wawa Slept Here

If you're looking for a blatantly conservative apartment, you're in luck. 

NYP reports that the longtime home of the late Barbara Walters has listed for $19.75 million. 

Walters, who died in December, at the age of 93, would spend her final years sequestered in this home. Located on the Upper East Side, at a white-glove cooperative at 944 Fifth Ave., the legendarily overrated journalist first moved in back in 1989. Now on the market, the apartment looks the exact same way as it did when Walters lived in it

Go inside BELOW.

Antonio Scarpacci Slept Here

Who knew driving a cab on Nantucket could be so lucrative? 

Gimme Shelter is reporting that Tony Shalhoub has parted ways with his $3.4 million Upper West Side apartment. The actor, who currently plays Abe Weissman on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” and wife Brooke Adams ("Days of Heaven," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") have just sold a 12th-floor “classic five” co-op at 15 W. 81st St., which last asked $3.4 million, down from its $4.49 million ask last year following a broker swap.

Shalhoub, a Tony- and multiple Emmy Award-winning actor, made his name as a character actor (mostly notably as lovable loser Antonio Scarpacci on "Wings") before starring for eight seasons as Adrian Monk, an ex-detective turned private police consultant, in “Monk.”

Shalhoub and Adams bought the apartment for $3.99 million in 2016 -- meaning it was last listed at a loss.

Go inside the two-bedroom, 2½-bath spread BELOW.

'Splashy' Chelsea Rowhouse Available for $33,000 a Month

 

To think I lived two blocks away from this place for nearly 25 years and didn't get invited to a single living-room pool party!

NYP reports that you can have the Hamptons without leaving Manhattan. From the front, this historic Greek Revival townhouse looks posh and buttoned up. But, like a mullet, it’s all business in the front — and party in the back.

Indeed, beyond the unassuming brick facade of this tony 232 W. 15th St. property, the interior is thoroughly modern and features an entire floor dedicated to an indoor swimming pool, installed in 1975. 

“Not only does the home have a full-size saltwater pool, it has a sauna and one of the most serene backyards in Chelsea,” Benjamin P. Dixon, who shares the listing with fellow Douglas Elliman agent Christian Poppell, told The Post. “It is living in your own personal Zen oasis.”

Go inside BELOW.

Peter Jennings Slept Here

The Wall Street Journal reports that the New York City apartment of the late "ABC World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings is hitting the market for $10.45 million. 

The three-bedroom co-op overlooking Central Park is being sold by Mr. Jennings’s widow, former ABC News producer Kayce Freed Jennings. 

Mr. Jennings bought the Upper West Side unit in the 1990s and did an extensive renovation, removing staff quarters to extend the kitchen, according to Ms. Jennings. Mr. Jennings started the renovations on his own, she said, and she helped him complete them. The couple were married in 1997 and moved into the apartment in 1998. Ms. Jennings said she doesn’t know how much her late husband paid for the unit.

Located in a prewar building, the corner unit spans around 3,600 square feet and has views to the west from the dining room, according to Ms. Jennings. The apartment has a large foyer as well as a library and a living room with a wood-burning fireplace.

Ms. Jennings said that the unit has been the site of various book parties and events for nonprofits. “The apartment is really well designed for that.”

The place looks truly spectacular. To see more photos, click HERE.

Alan Cumming Buys; Anonymous Buyer Nabs Heath Ledger Death Pad

It's been a few days since I checked in on celebrity real estate in the city, and now I see Alan Cumming just bought a 400-square-foot studio at 513 E. Fifth Street, a two-minute walk from the Scottish actor's East Village gay bar, Club Cumming. (That's TWO whole square feet smaller than my old place!) He reportedly paid $410,000 for the space with a brand new kitchen, exposed white brick, large windows and a newly renovated bathroom as well. See photos HERE.

Meanwhile, the SoHo loft where Heath Ledger overdosed more than 15 years ago has sold for $14.25 million. The "Brokeback Mountain" star had rented the 4,400-plus-square-foot unit at 419-421 Broome St. for roughly $25,000 a month. Property records show the home sold last month to an anonymous LLC in an off-market deal. On Jan. 22, 2008, the Australian actor was found dead in his bedroom -- his death caused by an accidental overdose of prescription medication. Shortly after his passing, the building, built in 1873, was transformed into a condominium and renovated with two stories added. Go inside HERE.

Judge Gives Flatiron Owners the 23 Skidoo

Wow, what do we make of this? The New York Post reports that as a result of an ongoing disagreement among the current owners of the Flatiron Building, the iconic property will soon be available to the highest bidder. 

The 121-year-old Manhattan office building -- which was originally known as the Fuller Building yet ironically currently sits empty-- will hit the auction block in what is known as a partition sale on March 22 -- stemming from a ruling in the contentious legal fight between its multiple landlords.

Keep reading BELOW.

Lena Slept Here

I see another celebrity apartment has just found a new owner. 

The New York Post reports that after just more than a month on the market, Lena Horne’s former home has found a buyer for its listing price. The late Broadway icon’s former Upper East Side perch traded hands for the $2.19 million it asked upon listing back in October. The buyer, a real-estate broker herself -- scooped up the unit after 38 days on the market, public records show. 

The 2,100-square-foot unit at 23 E. 74th St. is located a block from Central Park in The Volney, a building that was once a historic hotel before being converted into a co-op.

The Brooklyn-born Horne -- who had an illustrious career as both an entertainer and a civil rights -- first moved into the building in the early 1980s and lived there until her death, The Post previously reported. The unit was previously a separate one-bedroom and a studio, but Horne combined the two into the sprawling space that remained her sanctuary.

Wikipedia writes that Horne died of congestive heart failure at age 92 on May 9, 2010. Her funeral took place at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York, where she had been a member. Thousands gathered and attendees included: Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick, Liza Minnelli, Jessye Norman, Chita Rivera, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Leslie Uggams, Lauren Bacall, Robert Osborne, Audra McDonald, and Vanessa Williams. Her remains were cremated.

Horne’s daughter, the journalist Gail Buckley, inherited the two-bathroom, fifth-floor abode upon Horne’s death — and it was Buckley who put the unit on the market in the fall.

Have a look inside BELOW. The "maintenance" for the building is a mere $5,840 a month.

Yoko Ono Moves From the Dakota After 50 Years, Relocates to Farm Purchased With John Lennon

I missed this while I was in Spain, but it looks like one of my famous neighbors, Yoko Ono, has finally said goodbye to New York City. After lspending 50 years in the exclusive Dakota building on West 72nd Street and Central Park West -- where John Lennon was assassinated outside on Dec. 8, 1980 -- the 90-year-old widow has decided to live out the rest of her life on a farm upstate that she and the former Beatle purchased in 1978.

It was recently learned that during the pandemic, Ono opted to move to her expansive 600-acre farm near Franklin, N.Y., in the Catskills, full-time -- with no plans of returning to her Upper West Side abode. John and Yoko purchased the farm initially as a retreat -- and to raise Holstein dairy cows.

Gimme Shelter writes 

Ono now lives a “peaceful life,” out of the public spotlight, sources say, adding that the small town has a population of just 340 people.

The main house on the sprawling estate has four bedrooms and two bathrooms — and outside, Ono grows her own vegetables. Nearby are a farmers’ market and a pizza restaurant. Philip Norman, in his book, “John Lennon: The Life,” writes that the English singer bought a herd of 122 cows and 10 bulls for the farm at one point.

Back in 2013, the farm became a subject of contention, when Ono and her son, Sean, protested fracking in the state of New York. There was a rising threat to the farm that sits atop the Marcellus Shale -- a rock formation geologists estimate holds trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. “I have always felt lucky,” Lennon wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times, “to live on land [my father] loved dearly.” 

Despite being wheelchair-bound with her health declining in recent years, Ono recently revealed that she goes for 4-mile walks to beat depression.

Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933 into a banking family who suffered from starvation during World War II. They were often forced to barter household items for food while they sought refuge from Allied bombing raids. 

“She is a particularly special being,” Elliot Mintz, a close family friend and publicist, told The Post back in 2020. “In these 87 years, she’s lived 400.”

My friend Tim Teeman has a hilarious story about the time he interviewed Ono in her famed Dakota apartment, which she still owns. It's not mine to share here, but if you see me in person I will probably tell it to you! 

Row v. Apartment

I've always admired the glamorous old-world apartment buildings along Central Park West, like the Dakota (John Lennon, Lauren Bacall, almost Carly Simon), San Remo (Mary Tyler Moore, Rita Hayworth, Diane Keaton), El Dorado (Faye Dunaway, Bruce Willis, Michael J. Fox) and Beresford (Jerry Seinfeld, Meryl Streep, Calvin Klein, Tatum O’Neil, Michael Nichols/Diane Sawyer, Diana Ross). 

So it never crossed my mind that a single-family house was an option -- until now. 

Gimme Shelter reports that a 19th-century rowhouse -- a real rarity, featuring nine bedrooms and five baths -- has just hit the market for $7.99 million.

The 20-foot-wide limestone Neo-Renaissance residence, at 354 Central Park West, is 5,000 square feet. Built in 1892, it was designed by G.A. Schellenger and developed by Edward Kilpatrick.

This was also one of five rowhouses built between 95th and 96th streets. Only two of the original remain these days, and just one is for sale. What’s more, listing broker Frances Katzen of Douglas Elliman says this is the only townhouse for sale along Central Park West.

I think I'd still prefer the comfort and security of an apartment, but you can have a look inside and decide for yourself BELOW.

Are You Gaga for Central Park South?

As a commoner, I'm always fascinated to see where rich and famous people choose to live in New York City. So it was a surprise to see that a post-fame Lady Gaga lived in a seemingly unremarkable building I pass from time to time on Central Park South. (On the ground level there's a Sarabeth's, which has ridiculously good brunch.) The structure was built in 1941 and was apparently the former home of many entertainment icons, including Liza Minnelli, Johnny Cash, Loretta Young, Rod Stewart and “A Chorus Line” creator Michael Bennett. (These days the only bold-named neighbor you get is Keith Olbermann.) Gaga's former duplex penthouse is on the rental market now for $35,000 a month, which gives you not one but two bedrooms! Go inside BELOW.

Just Jack?

Gimme Shelter is reporting that Sean Hayes, best known for playing Jack McFarland on the long-running sitcom "Will & Grace," has been spotted house hunting on the Upper East Side.

In early December, Hayes toured a $23 million Upper East Side penthouse at the Wales, a historic former hotel converted to condos in Carnegie Hill. It’s a unit that Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost also once toured, as Gimme Shelter previously reported. 

This spring, Hayes will be starring on Broadway in Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Doug Wright’s new play, “Good Night, Oscar.” 

The full-floor, 4,179-square-foot residence comes with an immense 3,114-square-foot wrap terrace across two levels -- and includes an outdoor kitchen complete with a wet bar, a fireplace and a butler’s pantry.

I like the looks of the place but have a couple questions: 

A. How do some sitcom sidekicks wind up homeless while he's shopping for $23 million properties?

and 

B. Wouldn't any gay guy rather live in Joan Didion's old haunt?

Joan Didion Lived -- and Died -- Here

 

Here's another real-estate idea I'm looking for people to go in on -- just across the park from me!

New York Post reports:

The Upper East Side home of the late writer Joan Didion -- who died in December 2021 at the age of 87 -- has listed for $7.5 million, according to the property snoops at Curbed. Didion, whose wide body of work included her sorrowful “Blue Nights” memoir -- a title released in 2011 that recounts the death of her 39-year-old daughter (Quintana Roo Dunne) in 2005 -- died inside this four-bedroom co-op due to complications from Parkinson’s disease. 

Beyond her daughter, Didion was predeceased by her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, who died in this unit in December 2003 at the age of 71 of a heart attack -- a tragedy that opens her 2005 memoir, “The Year of Magical Thinking.”

I like the interior. Who's game?

30 East 71st Street #5A

Buy Me, Buy Me. Say That You'll Buy Me.

Love the looks of this "Scandinavian farmhouse"-inspired townhouse in Upper Manhattan on the market for $3.5 million, owned by Cardigans singer Nina Persson and her husband.  

Located in East Harlem, at 1989 Madison Ave., Persson purchased the six-bedroom, four-bathroom home in 2007 for $2 million, records show. Known as The Harlem House, it’s currently rented by one family. 

Unit 1 includes a two-bedroom duplex that can be transformed into a three-bedroom, with two bathrooms. It also includes access to the basement with three storage units, a washer/dryer and a fitness area.

Unit 2 includes a private stoop entrance and features three bedrooms with high ceilings.

Occupying more than 4,200 square feet, with an additional 700 square feet of outdoor space, the home has seen a gut renovation in the past few years.

Still trying to figure out how a one-hit wonder affords a spread like this, but please DM my hitless ass if you wanna go halfsies!  

More photos HERE. 

UPDATE: I've been corrected. The Cardigans may be a U.S. one-hit wonder, but I'm told they've sold 15 million albums worldwide -- back when that meant something.

Cyndi Lauper Lists Connecticut Spread for $1.25 Million

I'm a longtime fan of her music, and her heart seems to frequently be in the right place. But her 2012 memoir confirmed that she's a handful -- her belief that Tommy Mottola ruined her (already over pop-music) career is borderline delusional. And reading that she has a million-dollar-plus home in Stamford that she's selling makes her living in a HUGE rent-stabilized apartment in the historic Apthorp on the Upper West Side -- onetime home to Nora Ephron, George Balanchine and Joseph Heller -- for which she SUED to have the rent reduced to $508 a month all the more off-putting. (She "lost" and had to pay a whopping $989!)

I guess no matter how well-off you are, everyone's looking for a deal. But surely she must realize there's a low- or moderate-income family that needs her apartment more than she does.

The three-bedroom home measures 3,900 square feet and features a guesthouse Lauper used for writing.

Most hilarious/embarrassing detail: Her son, Declyn Thornton, is pursuing a hip-hop music career under the name "Dex Lauper," because Lauper has a lot more street cred than his real name!

The House(s) That Undies Built

Gay underwear peddler Andrew Christian, a peddler of gay underwear, has just put his all-steel L.A. hillside hugger on the market for $4.2 million -- while his Florida bungalow (once owned by Keith Strickland of the B-52s) is priced at $1.3 million. Not too shabby for a kid who grew up in Section 8 housing in Fresno. More photos HERE.

Underwear models sold separately.

UPDATE:

Read about a gay man's experience winning a charity basket of Andrew Christian underwear HERE.

Jane Fonda Buys $5.45 Million Townhome in Century City

The Oscar-winning star of "Grace & Frankie" recently broke up with music producer Richard Perry, so is selling their Beverly Hills estate to move to Century City. I get downsizing, but I'm still always surprised when Hollywood royalty lives in places that look like my parents' house, albeit much larger! 

BTW: I still think "Grace & Frankie" is a bit of a missed opportunity. All of the men are horrible -- especially the sons, but the ex-husbands are on more so do more damage -- and Lily Tomlin's Frankie is unnecessarily caricaturish. Jane carries the very uneven show and makes it worth watching, but it's hard to believe the scripts have anything to do with people associated with "Friends," which I rarely watched but know from reruns was always sharp and funny.. P.S. Why did they have to make the plot about lube AND follow it up with a vibrator? Subpar material for two legends. 

Go inside HERE.

Debbie Harry's New England Retreat

Call me a bad superfan, but the last I cared heard Debbie Harry had her place in Chelsea's London Terrace and a home in Red Bank, N.J., close to Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. Turns out she just bought a second property in Roxbury, Conn., onetime home of Marilyn Monroe,and Arthur Miller, plus current residents Dustin Hoffman, Graydon Carter, Denis Leary and   Stephen Sondheim.

Gimme Shelter reports:

Now 71, the talented blonde has expanded to Connecticut, where she bought a Roxbury retreat for $785,000 — a property that was built in 1795. The listing broker was also the seller, Halstead’s Jill Sloane — who had also sold Harry a neighboring property for $185,000 last year.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home is 2,685 square feet and sits on 3.47 acres.

It boasts a charming kitchen with a farm sink, a grand entertaining room with a fireplace, ceiling beams and French doors opening to a front patio.

The corner master bedroom also features a sitting room with a fireplace and windowed master bath. The home comes with original details, like its wide-plank flooring.

So Lucy Ricardo of her!

The Ice Maiden Leaveth

Tennis legend Chris Evert's 12,000-square-foot, eight-bedroom house in Boca Raton just hit the market for a cool $6 million. Any one-percenter types wanna go in on it with me?

Now I think I know why she never wanted to move in to Greg Norman's place.

Full listing HERE.

The best years of her life.

‘Mommie Dearest’ Mansion on the Market for $35 Million

"Oh, Mommie. I want it!"

"Absolutely not, Tina."

[Tears.]

 "I'm not mad at you, Christina. I'm mad at the appraisal."

All Day Buzzing writes: 

You’ll find all sorts of amenities in this historic Holmby Hills megamansion, but you won’t find a solitary wire hanger. This is the very mansion immortalized by Faye Dunaway in the epic Joan Crawford biopic “Mommie Dearest,” and it can now be yours for $35 million. Movie buffs will recognize the grand, sweeping staircase that Dunaway swanned up and down in the 1981 film. An almost identical copy was built on the Paramount lot, where most of the interior scenes were shot (including the memorable wire hanger scene). The lavish pool area is the actual location where filmmakers shot Christina’s birthday party scene, with the carousel and pony rides. It’s also where a fiercely competitive mother-daughter swimming competition took place in the camp classic. 

Details HERE.

'Mary Tyler Moore' House for Sale in Minneapolis

The famed Victorian mansion on North Weatherly Avenue where Mary Richards once lived is on the market for a cool $2.895 million. I'm willing to go in on it, provided I get Mary's studio! Read HERE.

From HERE.