$77,500,000, a Record for Co-ops

The $77,500,000 sale of the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson’s Fifth Avenue duplex to the Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik topped the previous record for the highest price paid for a city co-op and was the most expensive closed sale of the past week, according to city records.


The sprawling five-bedroom five-and-a-half-bath apartment, No. 1112A, is on the 11th and 12th floors of 834 Fifth Avenue, the majestic 16-story limestone-clad structure on the corner of East 64th Street, directly across from the Central Park Zoo; the building was erected in 1931 and is considered one of the masterpieces of its designer, Rosario Candela. The monthly maintenance for the residence was $22,801, according to a joint listing with Sotheby’s International Realty and Brown Harris Stevens. Neither broker would comment on the transaction.

The sale tops the previous co-op record set just last summer, when the hedge fund titan Israel Englander, nicknamed “Izzy,” the founder and chief executive of Millennium Management, paid $71,277,500 for a corner duplex apartment at another Candela building, 740 Park Avenue.

Daniel Levy, the chief executive of CityRealty, a real estate search website, attributed the recent co-op activity to “extremely limited supply and very high demand. You’re never going to create a building like 834 Fifth,” he said.

Mr. Blavatnik, 57, who bought the Fifth Avenue residence with his wife, Emily, was ranked No. 41 on Forbes magazine’s top billionaires list this year, with a net worth of $20 billion, up from $18.7 billion the previous year. He will likely fit in well at the elite co-op building, which has attracted an array of notable figures in business and entertainment, including Bing Crosby, one of the first residents.

Laurance S. Rockefeller, John D. Rockefeller’s grandson, moved into the building’s penthouse, and in 1946 bought the building outright before later converting his investment to co-ops. Mr. Rockefeller’s penthouse was bought in 2004 by Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, for a then-record $44 million; ownership was transferred to his former wife, Wendi Deng, as part of their divorce settlement.

Credit : Newyork times