Thursday 3 October 2002

Mariah wants a buyer for her downtown pad

Is Mariah Carey selling her pricey downtown condo? Real estate sources say the songbird is preparing to unload her triplex penthouse perch at TriBeCa's Franklin Tower. The singer paid more than $9 million for the four-bedroom, 4.5-bath penthouse in the 17-story building, built in 1931 as the Corn Exchange Bank and redeveloped into condos two years ago. She took the top three floors in 1999 after a lengthy search for housing, which included a well-documented co-op board rejection by for Barbra Streisand's penthouse on the Upper West Side.

Carey then hired interior designer Mario Buatta to wrap the triplex in chintz. (Her bedroom is "tastefully" done in lavender, pink and apricot.) While Carey's people deny she's pulling up her stakes, she's invited a few brokers to take a look around. "Several brokers have been in to take a look," says one insider. "She's asked them what they thought her place is worth." Maybe she's just curious. Just below Mariah's apartment is a much smaller, 5,000-square-foot condo going for $5.25 million. The building was one of the first to offer uptown amenities below Houston Street, including a doorman, a full-time concierge and porters.

Weeks after being rejected by Streisand's co-op board in 1999 - after having waited six months in limbo to learn her fate - Carey decided to go the condo route by pairing two Franklin Tower apartments for a total of $9 million. The colorful showplace, which features a 38-foot-long bathroom and a media room with overstuffed couches, has extraordinary views of the Hudson, Midtown and, unfortunately, Ground Zero.

Carey's neighbors include freckle-faced mannequin Maggie Rizer, who bought her 1,895-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment in 2000 for $1.6 million. W fashion editor Lauren duPont bought a similar-size place for $1.3 million. Before settling on her downtown digs, Carey went shopping on the Upper East Side. After giving a pass to a townhouse on East 80th Street, she looked at a condo redevelopment project in another East 60s townhouse - which her ex-husband, Tommy Mottola, eventually snapped up; it's now selling for $45 million.

(New York Post)

Many thanks to Mariah Downunder.



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