In 35 years, I’ve had my share of challenging transactions, but this one takes the most recent proverbial cake. I closed on the terraced penthouse in Carnegie Hill this summer, nearly two years after my first meeting with the estate’s executor. For the deal to happen, I needed to overcome at least three significant obstacles. First, the property’s interior had been reconfigured 35 years earlier by an abstract architect with distracting curved walls and pivoting room dividers and needed a total redo. Second the co-op board put up a series of roadblocks by questioning the legality of an upper level that had been annexed to the apartment by a former owner. The 17’x11’ addition with wet bar and bathroom sat directly beneath the building’s water tank and was accessed by a narrow spiral staircase in a corner of the Living Room. A 1992 House & Garden feature highlighted this “Tower Room,” a term I adopted in my marketing. Responsibility for the Penthouse’s wrap terraces was the third serious bane of a sale.
