Jeremiah of Vanishing New York fame ventured over to the Far West Village to get a look at the hyped new developments in the neighborhood (he also spotted the prefabulous Superior Ink), but mostly to see the glory that is Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi. And wouldn't you know it...
It isn't glass. It isn't metal. It does not undulate. Unsure of how to feel, we stand actually admiring the artistry, right down to the faux make-it-look-real "no parking" signs, when what to our wondering eyes should appear? Julian Schnabel, Mr. Chupi, on his way to the Tribeca Film Festival where his Lou Reed film, Berlin, is premiering.
Then: $40,000,000 Now: $33,000,000 You Save!: $7,000,000
It's hard to feel bad for techie bigshot Bill Joy, who just yesterday reduced the price on his never-lived-in triplex at Richard Meier's 176 Perry Street from $40 million down to $33 million. After all, he bought the place five years ago for only $17.57 million, and even after hiring The Meier himself to shape the place in his signature minimalist style, Joy still stands to make quite the profit if it sells at the new asking price. But a $7 million PriceChop is nothing to sneeze at, especially when the super-luxury market is supposedly so heated that any trophy sells in a flash. Sotheby's is certainly doing its part, churning out some of the most drool-worthy listing photos we've ever seen. The 11,000-square-foot triplex encompasses Floors 8-10, with five bedrooms and five full bathrooms. Quite tantalizingly, this apartment is now priced just $1 million more than a pair of homes at nearby Palazzo Chupi, creating quite the luxury sales showdown. The common charges on the Meier pad are triple that of the Chupster's.
· Listing: 176 Perry Street [Sotheby's]
· On the Market: What $40 Million at Meier Gets You [Curbed]
"I am a french photographer. I'll come soon from Paris to New York to organize some photos sessions to make underwater portraits with pregnant women. You can see my work here. To do these pictures, i'm looking for a private swimming pool with warm water for my models and i've seen that Richard Gere is selling his appartment through you! So i'd like to know if you can ask to Richard Gere, if he'll accept to lend me his swimming pool for 4 or 5 days in may? If not, may be can you help me to find other private swimming pool in Manhattan? Usually, i exchange the swimming pool with a photo session for family, wife or children! (I'm sorry for my bad english) So i'm waiting news from you and from Richard Gere about my project... Thank you so much, best regards." [CurbedWire Inbox]
Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi, for all its resplendent beauty, is having trouble finding those who are willing to love it for all eternity. The best kept secret in the West Village's "Pompeii-red" Venetian tower is now out of the bag: Richard Gere has been quietly marketing his massive 4BR, 4BA spread in the Chupster for about a month now, through Sotheby's broker Debbie Korb. Finally, the listing is out in the open. Gere's purchase created a huge press stir for his friend Schnabel's pet project, which may have been the point all along. He never moved in, but his apartment was customized to his tastes, a little less show-offish than Chupi's other units. For example, Gere opted for a more traditional white kitchen instead of the funky green of Chupi's other units. It's clear that the actor is looking for quite the celebrity mark-up on his investment. According to StreetEasy, he bought the apartment in September for $12 million. The new asking price is $17,995,000. With the duplex and triplex still on the market, this means that—for all the buzz—Palazzo Chupi is not garnering much interest from those with the means to actually attain it. And for this, we are sad.
· Listing: Full Floor in Palazzo Chupi [Sotheby's]
· Curbed PriceUpper: Palazzo Chupi Evens Off [Curbed]
· Palazzo Chupi No Longer For-Sale-By-Owner [Curbed]
Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi, the most beautiful thing in the history of the world, has taken more twists and turns than the life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (highbrow alert!). By now, we're all aware of the fact that Schnabel enlisted some real estate professionals to sell the West 11th Street palace of wonder's $27 million duplex and $32 million triplex, which were shown to every celebrity in town but still could not find any takers. So, what does one do when an apartment fails to sell? Raise the price, of course! The $27 million duplex (above; we'll jump on whatever chance we get to re-run those photos) is now the $32 million duplex, as of last week. It makes sense that the duplex would be on an even playing field with the penthouse triplex, if only because—in our humble opinion—the duplex is even more jaw-dropping. There's just something about a bathtub flanked by a wall of windows and a working fireplace that really makes the heart melt. Also, we dig the listing's new description: "Fit for Citizen Kane!" Why not "Fit for Richard Gere?"
· Listing: 360 West 11th Street [BHS]
· Gesamtkunstwerk, or the Total Artwork That Is Palazzo Chupi [Curbed]
· Palazzo Chupi Duplex Hits the Market, With Photos [Curbed]
Photographer Albert Watson's massive 20,000-square-foot live/work home at 777 Washington Street has sold, New York reports, and the amount is enough to make even the nearby Palazzo Chupi do a slow-clap in appreciation. The 31-room, 70-foot-wide West Village jawdropper, at the corner of Jane Street, went for $34 million after dangling on the market for a couple of years. This is on par with last year's downtown townhouse showstopper, the 55-foot-wide renovated 11 West 10th Street that went for a shade above $33M. Watson bought the bulding for $850,000 in 1985, and he swears this isn't some Village-selling-out-its-soul type of move. He's headed to Tribeca, but he says the new owner is an English financier who will keep it as a single-family home. "This is not a Superior Ink," Watson said. Burn.
· Hot Refrigeration Plant Goes for $34 M [NYM]
· On the Market: 777 Washington Street [Curbed]
LOLVILLE—What to say about this exciting real estate opportunity offered in an ad in Friday's Wall Street Journal? Writes a tipster, "Hell Yeah I'm interested. You can keep your Palazzo Chupi!" [CurbedWire Inbox]
LOWER EAST SIDE—Here's some Grade A rumormongering: "I heard a rumor from someone who lives in the BLUE condo on the Lower East Side that they're planning on building a BLACK condo somewhere nearby. Have you all heard anything about this?" Oh God, please say this is so. Tower of darkness! [CurbedWire Inbox]
UPPER EAST SIDE—The roster of designers has been announced for the 36th Annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House, this year free of the burden of actually taking place in a house. Twenty-one designers will transform four apartments and a penthouse at Manhattan House for the showcase, which will open to the public on April 24 and benefit the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. The participants: Andrew Edward Kepler Design & Interiors; Bilotta Kitchens of New York with Chef Daniel Boulud; Bograd Kids, Inc.; Charlotte Moss Interior Design; Ellen Ward Scarborough Ltd. with Pariscope Design, Inc.; Geoffrey Bradfield, Inc.; Ian Halliday, David Katon and Tania Balafoutis for BKH New York, Inc.; Jeff Lincoln Interiors; Kondylis Design; Larry Laslo Designs; Michael McKinnon, Inc.; Nancy Ruddy for Cetra/Ruddy; Philip Gorrivan Design; Richard L. Ridge & Roderick R. Denault Interior Design; S. Russell Groves Interior Design; Sara Bengur Interiors; Sara Story Design; Stephen Miller Siegel Architects, P.C.; TRUCK Product Architecture for Nurseryworks; White Webb, LLC; William McIntosh Design. Yay! [CurbedWire Inbox]
The forcefield of secrecy and exclusivity surrounding Julian Schnabel's Palazzo Chupi in the West Village has just been weakened, slightly. Even though the West 11th Street Pompeii-red mini-tower's two available apartments—the $27 million duplex and the $32 million triplex—were listed in the Times' real estate database, interested parties still had to be screened by Schnabel lieutenant Brian Kelly. Now, the Observer's Max Abelson reports, Schnabel is going the broker route. And because we're talking the Schnabe here, the Brown Harris Stevens broker enlisted has a totally awesome name (Paddington M. Zwigard), has never sold an apartment for more than $10 million and hand-wrote a letter to get the listings. There's a Chupiriffic open house on Sunday, but don't think any old Tom, Dick and Harry can waltz into the most beautiful apartments we've ever laid eyes on (yes, we got inside, which is a story for another day). The open house is by-appointment only.
· Listing: 360 West 11th Street triplex [BHS]
· Listing: 360 West 11th Street duplex [BHS]
· Schnabel’s Palazzo Goes Mainstream With $59 M. in Broker Listings [NYO]
· Gesamtkunstwerk, or the Total Artwork That Is Palazzo Chupi [Curbed]
[The lobby at Palazzo Chupi. Photograph by Robert Polidori for Vanity Fair]
Of course, Schnabel’s West Village building is an entirely different kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, or total artwork, but it is born from the same fervent attitude that makes Giotto’s blue-backed frescoes so unforgettable... He’ll take a Mizner fireplace, for instance, and create a pumped-up version by, in his words, "putting some balls on it." Likewise, the kitchens in each of the Chupi residences—with their board-and-batten wooden ceilings, emerald-green terra-cotta tiles, and cast-concrete countertops dyed chromium-oxide green—are straight out of Schnabel’s Montauk house, though re-tuned. None of this is simple mimicry. What’s interesting is how Schnabel mixes references to White and Mizner into a global iconography, including Moorish, Turkish, and Venetian touches, motifs the architects were attracted to themselves.
Simply put, a luxury development is not a luxury development without a swimming pool. Condo buyers may not use them, and the pools may drive monthly maintenance fees to ridiculous levels, but developers know that a private pool is an important marketing hook in the current high-stakes game of real estate development. These "lap pools" are supposed to be an exercise amenity, but for the most part they're sold as sexy playgrounds or relaxing getaways. The trend is so popular that it seems like every week we're posting renderings of a new development's private pool. And it got us thinking about which of these swimming holes cuts through the chlorine clutter and rises to the top. So, above is a photo gallery of our favorite new pools, ranked from 10 to 1. Many of the entries are renderings, which is why we're not calling these the "best." Who knows how these things will turn out? Instead, they are—for one reason or another—our favorites. Check it out, and let us know which ones we missed.
It may be late into a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, but nothing can stop the juggernaut that is the Palazzo Chupi from dropping more bombs square on our mindholes. Following the photo gallery of amazingness that accompanied the listing of Chupi's duplex, word comes that the Julian Schnabel building's other remaining unsold unit—the 3,845-square-foot triplex—is also listed via the New York Times. The price? Oh, just $32 million, a cool five milly more than the duplex. Both units have three bedrooms, so it's really a matter of how Chupiriffic you're willing to get in your quest for total world domination. Some gripping speeches to assembled armies can be bellowed out from all those terraces and balconies.
· Listing: Palazzo Chupi, 360 W11 Penthouse [NYT via Daily Intel]
· Palazzo Chupi Duplex Hits the Market, With Photos [Curbed]
Artist Julian Schnabel has paraded all of his celebrity friends through the five-unit pink/not pink tower of insanity he built on West 11th Street, but so far only Richard Gere (and some boring banker dude) has taken the bait. Because the Palazzo is not nearly as Chupiriffic when not hovering at full capacity, the Schnabe is now courting the masses—well, the masses who have an extra $27 million lying around. Courtesy of an eagle-eyed tipster, the penthouse duplex that Bono passed on is now listed through the New York Times. Here it is, and note that the contact info is for Brian Kelly, a close associate of Schnabel's. And here is where your pulse starts racing, because even though Vanity Fair just recently finally cracked the level of secrecy surrounding the building's insides, the listing has interior photos galore. Can't. Breathe.
Ever since Julian Schnabel Palazzo'd our Chupi, it had been a foregone conclusion that his buddy Bono would hop aboard the pink pony express. So when Scoopy's Notebook finally put it to paper, no one questioned its validity. But wait! The Daily Intel sent a USC journalism student to a GQ party out West, and he asked Schnabel point-blank about Paul David Hewson. Said the Schnabe: "No, Bono is not going to be there." Noooooooooo! But we're not throwing in the towel just yet. Maybe the deal's not done and Schnabel doesn't want to jinx it. Or maybe he just felt like lying to a snotty, brash young journo student. Been there, done that.
· ‘Schneighbors’ No More? [Daily Intel]
· Celebrity Real Estate Wrap: Bono Chooses Chupi [Curbed]
1)Andrew Lloyd Webber tried to sell his Trump Tower duplex in 1993, for $7.95 million. Then he tried to sell it in 2000, for $15 million. Third time's a charm, so it's back on the market ... for $22.5 million! The ubiquitous Dolly Lenz has the off-Broadway listing. Webber is looking to buy "an even grander" Manhattan apartment. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
2) Just in case you missed it in Friday's Linkage, the Wall Street Journal reported that Richard Gere bought a unit at Julian Schnabel's big pink stink, the Palazzo Chupi. The West Village building will house Schnabel, Gere, banker William J.B. Brady and Bono (allegedly). That leaves just one more apartment up for grabs in the pool party of the century. [Private Properties/Christina S.N. Lewis]
3) Sticking a fork into the East Village once and for all, neighborhood icon Parker Posey has listed her East 10th Street co-op for $1.1 million, and it may already be sold. The building also houses Chloe Sevigny and James Iha, who—when combined—almost have as much talent as that little dog Posey is always seen walking. A dark day indeed, if she's leaving the 'hood for good. [Manhattan Transfers/Max Abelson]
1) According to the Villager's Scoopy's Notebook column(!), Bono has indeed taken the penthouse duplex at Julian Schnabel's West 11th Street, confirming all those rumors. As for the meaning of "Palazzo Chupi," a SchnabelFriend writes in to the Villager to say it's a "term of endearment, something he calls his wife and sometimes his kids." [Scoopy's Notebook]
2) In August we told you that Lenny Kravitz's 30 Crosby penthouse was back on the market for the billionth time, this time at a staggering $19.5 million after a lengthy renovation. Our plea for interior photos went unheeded, but now Josh Barbanel reports that a deal for the place fell through, so the broker is ramping up the marketing. Translation: pictures, soon. [Big Deal/Josh Barbanel]
Artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel's big pink West Village tower was supposed to be the rebirth of the salon—an exclusive enclave of the most talented and creative (and wealthy) minds around. The Bonos of the world, for example. But Max Abelson reports in the Observer today that Schnabel has at last signed up the first of four tenants (not including himself), and that person is: Credit Suisse executive William J. B. Brady. Yep, just another boring moneyman, like every other real estate development in town. Brady paid $15.5 million for Unit 1, despite having paid $6.95 million for a duplex at 744 Greenwich Street just three months before signing the Palazzo Chupi contract. Now, in true finance guy fashion, he's trying to flip the duplex for a whopping $12 million. We find this all very depressing for some reason.
· Finance Bigwig Becomes First to Close in Schnabel’s Village Palazzo—Pays $15.5 M. [Manhattan Transfers]
· SchnabelWatch: Julian Defends Chupi, Has a Brew [Curbed]
It doesn't appear to be online (Ed.—UPDATE: here's the link), but this week's New York has a story on West Village pink pirateJulian Schnabel, and man, did they blow it. Sure the piece is mostly about Schnabel's film work, but the interview takes place inside his still under-construction Palazzo Chupi on West 11th Street, yet they didn't pry any chewy Chupi bits out of him. No explanation of what the name means, and no clues as to what celebrities/art stars will be moving into the other four units. But Schnabel did address the controversy surrounding the 17-story building:
"I didn't want to reinvent the wheel," he says. "There was always neo-Classical architecture in the Village, and this place is not so dissimilar." He points out a building a few blocks away and notes the similarity in color—which is true, in that both are in the red family.
While the gossip mill continues to swirl with word that Bono is buying the top two floors of artist Julian Schnabel's crazed pink tower on West 11th Street in the far West Village, we've got some big news today about the building: Julian has christened it! The thing is, no one seems to quite understand the name, which happens to be Palazzo Chupi. The Villager asked GVSHP's Andrew Berman for his translation:
"I have no idea what 'chupi' means, unless it means 'big, ugly building that never should have been built'. … He's obviously trying to pretend that this looks somehow Florentine or Venetian, when, really, it looks like a Malibu Barbie house that exploded or something."
Artist/filmmaker Julian Schnabel's big pink 
It doesn't appear to be online (Ed.—UPDATE: here's the 
