GET OUT! SEINFELD GETTING A PLACE AT THE BERESFORD? Jerry Seinfeld won’t have to act as if he lives on the Upper West Side much longer. That is, if he can win over a certain New York audience: the co-op board of the Beresford, 211 Central Park West-just two blocks from his fictive TV digs.
Sources familiar with the building said the comedian is in discussions to buy Isaac Stern’s duplex apartment, which is on the market for $4.35 million. Mr. Seinfeld-who also looked at an apartment at the rather un- Seinfeld ian Pierre, according to one broker-is next up to try to charm the building’s board, which has already rejected at least two potential buyers of the 3,400-square-foot apartment, including Sony Music Entertainment president Tommy Mottola. Mr. Seinfeld’s spokesperson had no comment.
On television, Mr. Seinfeld lives in a one-bedroom apartment on West 81st Street between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, but in real life he’s kept a when-I’m-in-town apartment at the Bolivar at 230 Central Park West. Of course, the Beresford, which was built in 1929 and designed by Emery Roth, is packed with stars more of Mr. Seinfeld’s caste-like Beverly Sills, Tony Randall, John McEnroe and Helen Gurley Brown.
The 19th-floor apartment includes a 450-square-foot terrace overlooking Central Park, 12-foot ceilings, a fireplace, three bedrooms and two maid’s rooms. At $4.35 million, it’s priced for a TV star making a million dollars an episode. Maintenance is about $4,000 a month. No word yet on how Kramer is taking all of this.
1150 Fifth Avenue near 96th Street
Two-bed, two-bath, 1,800-square-foot prewar co-op.
Asking: $875,000. Selling: $825,000.
Maintenance: $1,509; 50 percent tax-deductible.
Time on the market: one week.
THE LAST VIRGIN CO-OP BOARD SAYS YES Until 1989, this building (with limestone base, balustrade and decorative frieze) was a rental to the likes of Alistair Cooke and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s chief executive, Philippe de Montebello, left. Since the place went co-op, Mr. de Montebello has been an owner. The sale of this apartment is the first one to require the co-op board’s permission, since after a building is converted, the first owner doesn’t have to be approved by the board. Despite their inexperience, everything between board and buyer went smoothly, reports Connie Carter Lawson, the broker to the young couple who were approved to move in. Ms. Lawson lives in the building, which may have helped things. The sale brought the highest price for a six-room apartment in the building’s short history. The layout was flexible; the sellers had turned the 13-by-13-foot foyer into a dining room, enabling the dining room to be pressed into service as a family room. There was also a second master bath in addition to the maid’s bath. All this the buyers liked, in addition to the “oblique” view of the park, which is prime territory for play dates. Broker: Corcoran Group (Connie Carter Lawson; Dorothy Greiner).
221 East 62nd Street
Four-bed, 3.5-bath, 3,200-square-foot prewar town house.
Asking: $1.5 million. Selling: $1.25 million.
Time on the market: 20 months.
THE HOUSE THAT ALI BUILT Boxing promoter Don King’s town house slugged it out with potential buyers for over a year, going round after round and always K.O.’ing them before they could reach for their checkbook. The tale of the tape: The house is on a great block and has security. Every room has four surveillance monitors hooked up to the house’s perimeter. (Given Mr. King’s hair-raising business habits, which have attracted three grand jury probes, an F.B.I. sting, a 1985 tax-evasion case and his being charged, in 1995, with insurance fraud, it probably makes sense. For added home security, Mike Tyson had been known to sleep there.) On the other hand, the house isn’t in move-in condition. The boxing promoter bought it in 1975, one year after the “Rumble in the Jungle,” for $145,000, and renovated in a way that Mica Ertegun probably wouldn’t approve of: “powder blue carpeting,” remembered one broker who’d taken a tour. “It looked like a house you’d find in the suburbs.” But the real problem was that the layout was such that the house was only a two-bedroom: There’s a large master suite on one floor and a second bedroom and maid’s room upstairs. Broker: Leslie J. Garfield & Company (Jed Garfield).
Atlantic Avenue
Three-bed, three-bath, 3,500-square-foot postwar house.
Asking: $2.1 million. Selling: $1.925 million.
Time on the market: six months.
ROBERT (MORTY) MORTON’S NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: HAVE HAMPTONS HOUSE, WILL GET PICKED UP As producer for Late Night With David Letterman and Late Show With David Letterman, Robert Morton played smoothie to David Letterman’s world-crunching anxiety guy. After things started to run off the rails over at CBS, the man known to the viewers at home as Morty was ejected from his podium, landing first in the gossip columns as boyfriend of ABC Entertainment president Jamie Tarses, and then on his girlfriend’s network’s fall schedule as the producer of the sitcom Over the Top. That show didn’t make it past November, but Mr. Morton isn’t giving up: He’s got a variety show in the works, and now he’s got a house lined up for summer Hampto-schmoozing. The 1988, barn-style, shingle-skinned house is typical for a certain investment rung in the Hamptons class system. It was designed by popular local architect Francis Fleetwood and is described by a broker who saw it during its extended time on the market as “quite rustic.” It sits on 2.6 acres of what is described as a “rise” on Atlantic Avenue (also known as Ocean Road). There’s a heated pool and “room for a tennis court,” according to one report. Mr. Morton’s spokesman declined to comment.
