Johnson & Johnson heiress Libet Johnson has thrown down $48 million for the Vanderbilt Mansion at 16 East 69th Street, according to the New York Post. The purchase price is the most anyone has spent on a Manhattan townhouse since 2008, when 14 East 67th Street sold for $49 million. It's also the highest reported residential sale of any type in New York this year. The Post is pumped: "New York is back in the money!" Jennifer Keil declared.

Libet's new home, once owned by Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt herself, does sound nice: It's a 12,100-square-foot, five-story, neo-Georgian mansion, previously owned by Beauty.com founder Roger Barnett and author/heiress Sloan Lindemann Barnett, the daughter of billionaire George Lindemann. Barnett and Johnson are friends, so they didn't even use a broker. Johnson has been divorced five times, the paper notes, so now she has a nice big place for reflecting on all that. Or for entertaining. Or for doing whatever one does when they're paying $48 million to do it.

Johnson & Johnson heiress drops $48M on Vanderbilt Mansion [NYP]