Washington Post Owner Spends $4.65 M. for Central Park West Pied-a-Terre

As the newspaper industry gets beaten to its knees by the Internet and other beasts, it’s comforting to know that the oldest, most regal media families are buying six-and-a-half-room, 2,000-square-foot co-ops with 10 windows on Central Park.  

Mary and Donald Graham, the C.E.O. and chairman of the Washington Post Company, have paid $4.65 million for a pied-à-terre at 262 Central Park West. The 1929 co-op, incidentally, is called the White House.  

“I would, of course, beg you not to write anything about it,” Ms. Graham told The Observer. “We haven’t even talked to our friends about the fact that we’ll have this apartment!”  

“I think it’s important to say that we continue to be a devoted Washington family,” she said later, “and we’re not selling anything in Washington.”  

That’s a good thing: Mr. Graham’s grandfather bought The Post at a 1933 fire sale; his late mother Katharine is the patron saint of courageous media management; and he now oversees The Post and magazines like Newsweek and the sharp Web site Slate.  

The co-op’s seller, according to city records, is the estate of Martha Deutscher, who died last August at age 83. She had worked with the boutique broker Phyliss Koch, who listed the apartment. “Basically the whole apartment was on the park, and it was in beautiful condition,” Ms. Koch said. “And she”—meaning Ms. Graham—“appreciated the work that Ms. Deutscher had done.”  

Pictures on the broker’s Web site show 45 bookshelves, an immense piano and five rooms on the park: two 20-foot-long bedrooms, the 24-foot-long living and dining rooms, plus a superbly classy master bathroom.  

“I think the park is the greatest public space in the world,” Ms. Graham said. “I’ve always loved it! On every trip, I jog around the reservoir.”   

Now she can run right home.