LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
PRICE: $4,500,000
SIZE: 2,592 3 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In March, 2012, Oscar-winning actress Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables, Rachel Getting Married) and her then-fiancée, occasional actor and jewelry designer Adam Shulman, reportedly rented a six thousand dollar-plus apartment in the much ballyhooed Clocktower building in Brooklyn's Dumbo 'hood.*
Nine months later, in January, 2013, the newly-wedded couple shelled out $4.1 million for a much larger apartment a few floors higher but now, just eight months later, they've caught a quintessential case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and, as first revealed by the property gossips at the New York Post, have flipped the beotch back on the market with an asking price of $4.5 million.
An unidentified "insider" told the Post peeps that the Hathaway-Shulmans never actually moved in to the apartment because she felt it was "too big" and only used the nearly 2,600 square foot spread as a "crash pad" her clothes. Such are the weird, wacky, and sometimes inexplicable real estate shenanigans of the rich and famous.
Current listing details show the condo-loft had three en-suite bedrooms and 3.5 marble bathrooms in 2,598 square feet and carries common charges and taxes that total $2,701 per month with a tax abatement program scheduled to end sometime in 2013, which will likely increase the amount of property taxes paid by the next owner.
It's a long zig-zag from the front entry hall, past all three of the bedrooms plus a powder pooper, laundry room, and a windowless home office), to the lofty, open-concept main living/dining/cooking space that's more than 18 feet wide and 27 feet long. Windows wrap around one end and at the other there's an open, galley-style kitchen fitted and kitted with gun metal gray cabinetry, glossy black counter tops—probably granite—and high quality stainless steel appliances. We're not sure why the cabinet above the fridge is black but it really ought to be painted gray to match the others.
There are enviable 11-foot beamed concrete ceilings, a handful of exposed support columns, gleaming hardwood floors throughout, and sixteen warehouse-style windows filled with sweeping views from the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, and the Manhattan skyline all the way up to the Empire State Building.
The pet-friendly Clocktower building offers its well-heeled residents a live-in superintendent, a 24-hour attended lobby, a residents' only roof top deck, a 24-hour fitness center (included with common charges), and a bike storage area.
A slew of celebs including Jay-Z and Calvin Klein have trekked over to Brooklyn to take a gander at the epic penthouse apartment at the Clocktower building that Spike Lee used in the movie Bamboozled and Esquire magazine leased it in 2011 to use as an event space.** However, the building remains—as far as we know—somewhat slim on A-list celebrity residents. The only other (reasonably) high profile peeps Your Mama knows to own apartments at the Clocktower are Meryl Streep's singer/songwriter son Henry Gummer, writer/cultural commentator Cintra Wilson, and model Bridget Hall. A couple of months ago fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff and husband, actor/director Gavin Bellour dropped $1.82 million for a 2,100 square foot spread on a low floor with two bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, and an bi-level open concept main living area.
Our research indicates Miz Hathaway also owns a West Coast abode, a secluded 1960s contemporary not so far from the Mulholland Tennis Club that she quietly acquired in May 2009 for $2.2 million.
*For non-New Yorkers Dumbo is an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Until fairly recently it was a dense and gritty pocket of warehouse buildings on cobble stone streets. Public transportation into and out of the neighborhood sucked and it was an undesirable place for rich and famous people to live. Nowadays there are a number of high-cost, full service buildings and trendy boites and boutiques favored by the sorts of people who can afford to pay four or six grand a month for a one or two bedroom apartment.
**The triplex penthouse is currently for salehttp://www.corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/2546956 with an $18 million price tag, reduced from it's original (and highly optimistic) $25 million asking price.
listing photos and floor plan: Warburg Realty