What a flip! The most expensive downtown deal of the year is a $49 million triplex penthouse in Soho.
The massive loft-like home is in a 19th-century cast-iron building at 421 Broome St. where the late actor Heath Ledger tragically overdosed back in 2008.
The penthouse seller bought the 8,000-square-foot vertical mansion for $35.1 million during the peak of the pandemic, in September 2020 — then flipped it to make a healthy $14 million-plus profit less than 14 months later, according to property records.
But it took a crazy roller coaster ride to achieve such an eye-popping deal. Back in 2018, the mansion was asking $65 million. Then it sold for almost half of that: $35 million in 2020. Its most recent sale — which eclipsed the $45 million penthouse sale at 56 Leonard, this year’s previous record — was an off-market deal, according to property records.
The mystery buyer appears to be a tech mogul who bought it via a secretive shell company with a Palo Alto, Calif., address.
Ten years ago, investor David Matlin, a distressed asset investor and his wife Lisa, a Broadway producer who once owned a boutique with actor Phoebe Cates, bought the penthouse for $17.8 million, then hired Gwyneth Paltrow’s designer, Roman and Williams, to renovate it.
By then, the couple declared it “too big” — it has six terraces spanning 3,700 square feet and a hot tub — and listed it for sale. The four-year renovation saw the installation of oak floors, a black marble, a cantilevered staircase, an industrial-chic chef’s kitchen with black granite, Italian Carrara marble bathrooms and three skylights.
There’s also a private elevator, plus dumbwaiters on every floor, 15-foot ceilings, arched windows, woodburning fireplaces, French doors, more than 20 custom closets and a gym.
The landscaped wrap terraces are an entertainer’s dream, boasting an outdoor kitchen, fireplace, television, limestone fountain and a boxwood and Japanese maple tree. Douglas Elliman’s Oren and Tal Alexander repped the buyer and the seller.
Ledger was paying close to $25,000 a month for a fourth-floor unit when he accidentally overdosed in 2008.
