Realty Bites: Puff Rebuffed
Combs Harlem for charity house.
Beleaguered mixmaster Sean “Puffy” Combs isn’t having much luck with real estate either: His twelve-story building at 813 Park Avenue has been on the market all year for $15 million. Meanwhile, his efforts to help Harlem kids with his charity after-school enrichment program, Daddy’s House, have smacked into the uptown real-estate boom. Neighborhood sources say Combs has spent three years combing Harlem to find Daddy’s House a home. His point person on the search is executive director Sister Souljah, the rapper turned novelist who oversees the organization’s weekend tutoring projects (math, geography, “manhood training” and “womanhood training”), international travel group, summer Wall Street program, and upstate summer computer-literacy camp. Sources say Daddy’s House made an offer on a $700,000 brownstone off Convent Avenue in Hamilton Heights. But the neighbors weren’t having it. “As soon as they found out, they called the owner and said, ‘Sell the place to Puffy over our dead bodies,’ ” says an uptown broker. Apparently, as property values on these tree-shaded streets continue to rise, locals have come down with a bad case of the NIMBYs. The property was yanked off the market, only to return at $1.2 million. A spokesperson for Daddy’s House says, “The program hasn’t actively looked for space in the past year and a half.” But a member of the Greater Harlem Real Estate Board confirmed Puffy’s real-estate woes, saying, “He just doesn’t know the real value of these residential brownstones. This area’s been white-hot for years now.” In the meantime, Daddy’s House will stay at the Harlem YMCA.
JOY ARMSTRONG
Greg Anthony Nets 10021 Condo
NBA star Trail Blazes into Chanel country.
Knick turned Trail Blazer Greg Anthony may be a well-known Republican, but that doesn’t mean he wants to spend his off-season hangin’ with Bob Packwood. When he was traded to Portland, Anthony and his wife, Crystal, who’s a lawyer, were looking with Corcoran’s Wendy Sarasohn to move into Manhattan from a 7,000-square-foot house in Tuxedo Park. But it’s not like he was going to let his newborn son grow up surrounded by damp ex-hippies. When the Tuxedo manse sold this summer, Anthony’s friends (and, since they moved there, proselytizers for the Upper East Side) Spike and Tonya Lee recommended Corcoran’s Spencer Means, who teamed up with Sarasohn. “At one point, he rented a limo” for both brokers, Crystal’s parents, and a trainer to look, says Sarasohn. They settled on a pair of condos at the Leonori, on 63rd at Madison – one $1.3 million, the other $700,000 – that they’ll combine into one 2,000-square-foot home. (They haven’t closed yet.) “They liked the old, elegant prewar buildings,” says Means of the Leonori, which was built as an apartment-hotel in 1901. “Very Waspy, right? It’s all because of Spike.”
CARL SWANSON
Big Deals
TriBeCa
34 North Moore Street
Three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,700-square-foot co-op. Asking: $865,000. Selling: $765,000. Monthly maintenance: $1,300. Time on market: eight months.
Champing at the bit to open a bridle shop in the Hamptons – that’s saddles, not veils – this seller let her feng shui-friendly loft go for less than she’d hoped. But don’t blame the chi; three deals fell through. It’s an old-school loft with ten-foot ceilings, brick walls, and an elevator that opens directly into the apartment. It’s also on the hippest street in TriBeCa, near John F. Kennedy Jr.’s old loft, in a converted warehouse that now houses six apartments. Prudential MLB Kaye brokers Jo Siegel and Diane Kramer represented the seller; the buyers, represented by Douglas Elliman, are moving down from the West Village, quite happy with their deal.
TARA MANDY
Upper West Side
253 West 73rd Street
One-bedroom, one-bath, 1,200-square-foot condominium. Asking: $610,000. Selling: $610,000. Carrying charges: $745. Time on market: three weeks.
The buyer of this apartment in the Level Club, a 1926 building down the block from the Ansonia that was originally built for the Masons, found himself in two tight spots – physical and otherwise. For one thing, he needed space and was looking to knock down the wall between his apartment and the spacious, double-height one-bedroom next door. But he’s also a broker, for Corcoran, and the apartment next door was – the horror! – an exclusive listing of Benjamin James Associates. He sucked it up and consorted with the enemy, and the deal went off without a hitch, according to Benjamin James’ James Ferrari. “He was just like any customer to me.”
CHRISTOPHER BONANOS