(Photo: Courtesy of Corcoran)

14 EAST 4TH STREET
The Facts: Three-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath quadruplex.
Rent: $32,000.
Agents: Chris Toland and Paul Gavriani, the Corcoran Group.

(Photo: Patrick McMullan)

These days, Britney Spears is busy wandering around L.A., keeping the tabloids guessing about her sanity and ducking the child-welfare officers. But a few years back, in more scrupulously image-controlled days, she owned this three-bedroom quadruplex in the Silk Building in Noho—upstairs from the former Tower Records store—and used it regularly as her pied-à-terre. That was back in her pre-K-Fed days, when shocking her public meant making out with Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards and attempting (Crossroads, anyone?) to be an actress. The apartment was difficult to sell and required years on the market and numerous price cuts—$2 million worth—before it found takers, finally bringing $4 million. After stripping the place of anything Britney and giving it a makeover, the new, noncelebrity owners have put it back on the market as a high-end rental. It has an interesting pop-culture pedigree; yoga-loving rap impresario Russell Simmons and eternal Stonesman Keith Richards occupied the place before Spears. If those bedroom walls could talk, they’d probably be speechless over what they’ve seen.

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• Archive: “Real Estate”
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