Which Celebrity Will Sleep Here?

So I confess: Even as a native New Yorker (and self-proclaimed design junkie), I'd never even heard of the historic Apthorp residence in New York City until word hit the streets that Brangelina has been scouting it out as a possible home base for their brood. One spin around the website and I was rushing off to buy a Mega Millions lottery ticket.

That's because the one time rental-only property, and former home to celebs like Cyndi Lauper, Al Pacino and Rosie O'Donnell, has recently been converted into luxury condos. And when they say luxury, they mean all-out grandeur. Some units are as large as 12 rooms, which of course is plenty of space for the Jolie-Pitts to settle down and sprawl out. According to Curbed, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin and Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have also checked out the units. (It's only a matter of time before someone plunks down some major dough for one of these condos!)

The legendary residence, built in 1908 and modeled after the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy, is the work of William Waldorf Astor, famed politician-socialite-hotelier, one of the original trust-fund babies, whose 1890 inheritance made him the richest man in America at the time. (His more notable work, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, was built where his home had been.)

Much of the Apthorp's original architectural details have been restored-like the original herringbone wood floors, hand-cut mosaic tile entry foyers and hand crafted ceiling moldings-and each unit-ranging from 1,500 to over 8,000
square feet, with 12 to 14-foot ceilings-is being billed as "one-of-a-kind". Take this 4-bedroom beauty for example...


The NY Daily News reported earlier in the month that the Jolie-Pitts were ready to drop as much as $25 million on a trio of units, but thanks to the struggling housing market they may be able to put away some of that cash for a rainy day. Realtors at Prudential Douglas Elliman recently slashed prices at the Apthorp with the most expensive, a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom unit, coming in at $7,500,000.