LUXE LIVING
BEST CITY VIEWS
THE UPPER FLOORS OF ONE57
It would be hard to beat the views from the Western Hemisphere’s tallest residential building: One57, the 92-unit condohotel at 157 East 57th Street that Extell Development finished building last year. From the upper floors of the 90-story, 1,004-foot spire, lucky owners can survey vistas that include all of Central Park, uptown Manhattan, parts of New Jersey, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, the major airports — even the northern reaches of Staten Island. Of course, such dictatorial views come with hefty price tags: Two One57 penthouses have traded for more than $90 million, the highest amounts ever paid for a NYC apartment. Both of those penthouses are sheathed in glass — the better to enjoy the view.
THE BEST of NEW YORK Luxury Listings takes a peek at the top buildings, top views, top architecture and much more
T
o kick off 2014, Luxury Listings deep-dived into the best of New York City real estate to come up with the tops in buildings, views (city and water views), fitness centers, residential gadgetry, architecture and much more. These are properties and perks that make New Yorkers — and potential New Yorkers — take notice of a real estate scene that’s doing pretty tops itself. Who could not notice, for instance, our pick for Best City Views: the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, the 90-story One57 on East 57th Street? Or our pick for Best Water Views, the august River House, where its 62,000-squarefoot private club has been turned into one
14
Luxury Listings NYC | January/February 2014
BY TOM ACITELLI of the priciest private listings in the city’s history? Closer to the ground, there are supreme amenities like our pick for Best Pool, a 61-foot, Travertine tile-lined run in Tribeca, and our pick for Best Gym/ Spa, an all-in-one complex on the far West Side that spans more than 80,000 square feet and where the spinning center and basketball court are just for starters. Moreover, if you can’t afford access, we have picks like Best Exterior, which belongs to a glassy new number that turned an old eyesore of a closed candy factory into what one wag likened to “some sort of Soho spacecraft.” There’s also Best Starchitecture, which comes via another far West Side address, this one described as “a hybrid between the European perim-
eter block and a traditional Manhattan high-rise.” We’ll leave you to reach your own comparative description. Finally, though we didn’t include it, the New York real estate market overall might have made this Best of New York list, with prices for luxury homes up amid a tight supply for those who want to buy in or switch places. Simply put, New York luxury real estate had one of its best years ever. The median sales price for a luxury Manhattan home (defined as the top 10 percent of the market), for instance, by the last quarter of 2013 was $4.1 million, according to appraiser Miller Samuel — anything below that, and you were buying in the rest of the market.