Richard Perry, according to Fortune, is “one of the most successful investors of our time.” The founder of hedge fund Perry Capital is also an avid art collector, a triathlon runner, and a carrier of “a white patent-leather murse.” But what he isn’t is a showy guy — he avoids media coverage, and is reportedly highly secretive. You might never know, for example, about the massive Pop Art collection that he keeps in his $11 million penthouse on Sutton Place. Only invited guests (like Barack Obama and Caroline Kennedy, who first met there) get to see most of it, though if you’re one of the lucky few, you’ll be handed a catalogue of the works upon entering the apartment and will be given a personal tour, like you’re in a museum.
There is one — literally — glaring exception to his privacy: a giant green Jeff Koons Diamond that he keeps on his roof in a white-walled quadrant of his massive terrace. Since its installation in 2007, everyone high-up enough to see the sculpture has loathed it, and some complainers even got Perry to shift the thing so the reflected sunlight would stop “burning like lasers” through their windows. What do you guys think? We kind of love it, and the placement is probably exactly what the artist would have wanted. Leave it to somebody with that kind of view of the 59th Street Bridge to find something to complain about.
DIAMOND IN THE ROOF [NYP]
