On a recent Thursday evening, Louise Sunshine, president of the real-estate marketing and brokerage firm the Sunshine Group, held a gathering of about 100 brokers in her sales office 25 stories above Park Avenue. Flanked by Vornado Realty Trust chairman Steven Roth, who is developing a luxury tower on the former site of the Alexander’s department store at 58th Street and Lexington Avenue, and Jacques Grange, the building’s marquee interior designer, Ms. Sunshine circulated among the brokers as they ate and drank and absorbed her message: One Beacon Court, as the residential portion of the mixed-use tower will be called when it opens later this year, is not just some cheesy condo building in east midtown, but a dazzling, starmaking address on the order of Trump World Tower or the Time Warner Center.
Dennis Mangone, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, was apparently listening. Four weeks later, One Beacon Court made headlines after Mr. Mangone sold Beyoncé Knowles a pair of apartments in the building for $9 million.
It’s been true for some time now that to foment the media hype and marketing punch necessary to charge upward of $4,000 per square foot for a new apartment, attaching a celebrity name to an address has become an indispensable facet of ultra-luxury real-estate development.
What’s new is how little it matters whether Ms. Knowles actually moves into the apartment she’s just bought-about as little as whether Julianne Moore actually uses Maybelline. In fact, making these deals has become a lucrative sideline for celebrities: “Flipping” Manhattan apartments-buying in new developments at what some brokers say is often a “special price” and then selling at massive profits without ever moving in-is frowned upon in the city’s dowager co-op buildings (which often refuse celebrity applicants for fear the building will be associated with low-culture lucre), but has become an essential part of celebrities’ portfolios.
“I get approached by building owners to do P.R. for buildings and to get celebrity clientele to buy in,” said celebrity publicist Lizzie Grubman. “It’s happening very frequently now. And my clients do get contacted specifically to move in when buildings are being marketed.
“Developers have offered discounts to my clients,” she added. “They go through me, because they know it’s a connection.”
“Having a celebrity reside in a building is like a designer lending a celebrity clothes to wear to the Oscars. It’s the business,” said Deborah Grubman of the Corcoran Group, who is currently listing Martha Stewart’s 3,600-square-foot duplex in the Richard Meier tower at 173 Perry Street for $7.25 million (and, coincidentally, is Lizzie Grubman’s stepmother).
“Celebrities are like anybody else: They want to make money,” said Darren Sukenik, a senior vice president with Douglas Elliman who has sold apartments in the Silk Building, where Britney Spears bought.
As celebrities who have dwelt in newly built star dorms file out of them after staying for a year or two-or never moving in at all-they are grabbing headlines with the eye-popping prices they’re getting when they sell, and their buildings are rivaling the Dakota and the San Remo for the title of best Manhattan address. “A celebrity realizes the bankable dollars of their name, absolutely,” said Scott Durkin, chief operating officer of the Corcoran Group. “And when they are able to get in at the first-offering-plan price, they’re almost guaranteed, with the publicity of their celebrity name and the appreciation by the time the project is finished, that they will have made a lot of money.
“The developers have marketing agents with connections to all the top brokers in the city,” Mr. Durkin continued. “When we know of a celebrity who’s looking, we offer them these buildings because they’re new, and celebrities love new product. And for the developers, it’s a no-brainer.”
“If someone is selling a very expensive condo in Soho and Tribeca, the leasing agent will call me and say, ‘We would like to pay you X amount of dollars to throw a party at the place and invite your celebrity clients to boost exposure for the apartment,” said Lizzie Grubman.
In 2000, when Richard Meier brought his angular architecture to the wind-swept blocks in the far West Village flanking the Hudson River, the Perry Street buildings became household names. Martha Stewart, Calvin Klein, Nicole Kidman, Vincent Gallo and Jean-Georges Vongerichten who all purchased lofts in the buildings. Now the Perry Street project is experiencing a mass name-drain, with Ms. Stewart, Ms. Kidman and Mr. Klein all looking to sell.
“Perry Street has been a disaster. It’s been a very sad exodus,” said Donald Trump. “I think the downtown market is a very delicate market. When you go downtown, it’s a very fickle market down there and it can change instantaneously.”
Mr. Trump may be missing the point. Uptown or downtown, as long as there are stars involved, exodus does not equal disaster, since celebrities’ auras appear to remain behind even after they’ve sold for a massive profit and moved elsewhere-whether they ever lived in the building or not.
The celebrity building trend began in the early 1980′s, brokers and developers say, when three lissome supermodels-Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista-all purchased lofts in Soho’s Police Building at 240 Centre Street. Since then, celebrities have congregated in new downtown developments at an ever-increasing pace, lending their cool presence to the building’s commercial cachet.
When 30 Crosby Street, the former 19th-century paper factory on a cobblestone block between Broome and Grand streets, was converted to 13 loft apartments in 2000, celebrity buyers were among the earliest takers in the $25 million development. Lenny Kravitz nabbed the penthouse in October 2000 for $8 million, and in April he reportedly received an offer for $12.5 million on his 6,000-square-foot duplex. Courtney Love bought a fourth-floor loft at 30 Crosby in January 2001 for $2.6 million and promptly sold the place later that year for $3 million. Not all celebrities were thrilled with the publicity surrounding the building. In January 2001, Liv Tyler bailed on her $2.5 million contract to buy a 4,200-square-foot loft after the building raced through the headlines, instead seeking privacy in a $2.9 million townhouse on West 11th Street.
Nearby in Soho, 285 Lafayette Street filled up with notables after 21 luxury lofts were constructed atop the artists-in-residence building in 1999. Buyers included David Bowie and Iman; Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch; Patrick McEnroe and Melissa Errico; I.B.M. heiress Olive Watson; Larry Everston, the owner of Tootsi Plohound; a Columbia Records executive; theater scion Eric Nederlander; and hotelier Ian Schrager. Mr. Nederlander sold his loft earlier this year to Democratic political fund-raiser Ali Pratt for around the $4.9 million asking price; he paid $1.8 million in 2000. Most recently, News Corp. media-mogul-in-waiting Lachlan Murdoch unloaded his spread in the building for $7.5 million, after paying $3.6 million for the place in 1999.
Already, real-estate watchers are talking about Morton Square, the $200 million development in the far West Village designed by the architect Costas Kondylis, now that twin teen sirens Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen purchased a $3.5 million apartment there in September.
And, of course, there’s the Perry Street towers. As the development made headlines week after week in 2000, filling with a laundry list of celebrity buyers, some real-estate watchers started to wonder when they would set up the velvet rope along the West Side Highway. Now, with reports of spurting water leaks, construction delays and even rumors of bullet holes piercing the aqua-colored glass façade, the original celebrity cast is seeking to cash out without ever having to move in-and they’re likely to take their sorrows about the building’s construction all the way to the bank. Ms. Stewart paid $6 million in 2000, and is now asking $7.2 million for her unoccupied penthouse. Mr. Klein wants $19.5 million for his vacant triplex (he paid $14 million in 2000). Ms. Kidman may be an intriguing exception: According to sources, she will be soon listing her 4,000-square-foot spread for $8 million, though she paid about the same price back in August 2002.
The exodus is beside the point for the developer.
“The developers have something to be gained. In other words, to attract a high-profile name, give them a lot of free publicity,” said one broker who has sold extensively to celebrity clients in the city’s newest downtown developments. “What happens is, not only do they [celebrities] buy in the very beginning, when prices are lower, but also the developers will cut a special deal because the amount of publicity boosts the value of their building. It really serves both the celebrity and the developer of the building really well. Early on, you get a big name to buy into the building and it generates a tremendous amount of free press, which pushes prices up in the building. Celebrities, if they flip, end up making a profit; the developer ends up getting a lot of free publicity. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
“What does Madonna living next-door do to the property value? It could add 30 percent. Actors and actresses have a great pulling power,” said Paul Purcell, the former president of Douglas Elliman, who now runs the relocation firm Braddock and Purcell.
“If you can get a name, obviously it’s the way to go,” said Dottie Herman, the president of Prudential Douglas Elliman. “Certainly, in any development where you see celebrities, people are attracted to success and successful people. It gives a kind of an allure to it.”
Though developers of the city’s newest luxury developments say they don’t actively seek celebrity tenants, their marketing plans include parties like the recent event at One Beacon Court, where top brokers who have extensive contacts with agents, entertainment attorneys and managers are wined, dined and sold on the building’s merits, in hopes they’ll bring in their exclusive clientele.
Still, some developers dismiss the notion that attracting high-profile tenants factors into their marketing.
“We’re not trying to market to celebrities. We’re interested in attracting people that respect the product-people who are successful and people with means,” Vornado’s Mr. Roth said about Beyoncé’s recent purchase in his building at One Beacon Court. “Some people give away apartments to celebrities. We don’t do that.”
“We don’t have any secret avenues to pursue celebrities. They’re a happy byproduct of the business we’re in,” said James Lansill, a senior managing director at the Sunshine Group who is overseeing the marketing of the newest Richard Meier creation, an $80 million glass-and-aluminum tower set to rise 16 stories at 165 Charles Street, with 31 lofts ranging in price from $1.22 million for a 703-square-foot studio to $18.5 million for the building’s 4,365-square-foot penthouse. Unlike the Perry Street lofts, which were delivered unfinished, the Charles Street apartments will be completely designed by the Pritzker Prize–winning architect, right down to the kitchens’ matte lacquer cabinetry and the Corian counters and backsplash.
“The buildings stand for themselves. I want people who live there and who want to live there. I think the fact it’s very quickly sold out is a validation of the work; it doesn’t matter necessarily who lives there,” Mr. Meier said. “It’s become a media thing. It’s about the media following the stars. When they go to a certain restaurant, it’s the same. If it helps architecture, so much the better.”
Though Mr. Lansill said his firm doesn’t market explicitly to celebrities, in the April 30 issue of Variety the entire front cover carried an advertisement not of Miramax’s latest release, but of a 6,435-square-foot Tribeca townhouse that currently lists for $12 million, in a spread from the Sunshine Group.
If the celebrities themselves aren’t reading Variety , it’s a good bet their agents and handlers are.
“It’s the most concrete example of targeting that audience,” Mr. Lansill said.
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