LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $17,950,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 4 full and 4 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: It was only in February 2010 that R&B superstar Alicia Keys and her Grammy-winning record producer/rapper/DJ husband Swizz Beatz (née Kasseem Dean) dropped $12,750,000 to acquire high-heel sporting rock star cum design maven Lenny Kravitz's legendarily difficult to sell real estate white elephant in New York City's Soho 'hood.
The children who follow celebrity real estate will recall that Mister Kravitz—at one time a bone fide real estate baller—spent several years unsuccessfully trying to sell his decadent duplex digs at a frequently-changing variety of asking prices that went as high at $19,500,000 and dipped as low as $12,500,000.
Thanks to Soho Sally (and the kids at Curbed) we've recently come to understand that two short years after buying their Manhattan aerie from Mister Kravitz, a fairly quiet wagon hitching ceremony on the island of Corsica, a new baby boy they named Egypt, and two more Grammys to add to her dozen others, Miz Keys and Mister Beatz have flipped their glassy duplex penthouse in Soho back on the market with a substantially increased asking price of $17,950,000.
Listing information shows the duplex penthouse, which has a third level roof terrace, measures in at a mansion-sized 6,167 square feet and contains 4-5 bedrooms and 4 full and 4 half bathrooms. Monthly maintenance and common charges for the penthouse that sits atop a full-service boo-teek building—once home to Hole rocker and Twitter princess Courtney Love—run a hefty-hefty-hefty $11,564 per month. Listing information also indicates the penthouse property also comes with separate and private wine cellar and storage/dressing rooms, presumably located somewhere in the bowels of the red-brick and cast iron building.
Also on the lower lever are a library/media room with walk-in closet and attached private bathroom, and a considerable eat-in kitchen with colossal marble-topped work island, a small walk-in pantry, an adjoining laundry room, and a wall of windows that slide open to a narrow terrace that runs the full width of the building.
The floating glass staircase—still with mortifying taupe shag carpeting on the treads—ascends to the second floor where there's a large office area completely encased in glass that overlooks the dining room. A long hallway provides access the guest/family bedroom wing that consists of one bedroom with walk-in closet and private attached facility plus two smaller bedrooms, each with private powder rooms and a shared sky-lit shower room that opens directly into the hallway.
The star-worthy, second floor master suite has huge windows, massive sky lights, a small private balcony, and several standard closet/storage cabinets plus a fully-fitted dressing room. The compartmentalized bathroom consists of his-and-her terlit/bee-day cubbies that open into a shared shower space and a wide, curving wall with twin sinks/vanities that flank an over-sized soaking tub.
A glass enclosed exterior staircase climbs from the second floor to the massive roof-top terrace with built-in stainless steel barbecue center/outdoor kitchen and expansive city view.
We haven't a clue why Mister and Missus Keys might want to sell their fancy pants penthouse so soon after buying but it could be that in the end it's just not large enough to accommodate their growing family—Mister Beatz has four children by four woman including a toddler boy named Egypt born to Miz Keys.
Prior to buying Mister Kravitz's sloppy real estate seconds, Miz Keys owned a fairly traditional, 15-room mansion in the upscale suburban Long Island enclave of Syosset (NY) bought in December 2005 for $2,933,380, put up for sale in early summer 2010 with an asking price of $3,850,000 and sold, according to property records, in June 2011 to a local orthodontist and his wife for $2,995,000.
listing photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Real Estate