Rapper pays $28 million for a Fifth Avenue penthouse
Four bedrooms, a terrace the size of a tennis court and a view of the park. The listing noted a "private rooftop." The buyer's team has already asked how private.
One of the most-streamed rappers in the country has paid $28 million for a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in the 70s, according to records filed with the city on Friday. The duplex has four bedrooms, a library, a terrace that the listing compared to a tennis court, and a "private rooftop," which the listing described in two words and the buyer's representatives have since described in a letter to the building's board.
The letter, which the Bugle has seen, asks the board to confirm that the rooftop is "not accessible from adjacent buildings, utility poles or the open air." The board has responded that it is "a roof."
The deal
The apartment was listed in May at $32 million. The seller, an heir to a department-store fortune, had owned it since 1998 and had, according to a neighbour, "not been up to the roof in years, and after this summer, who would."
The price is the highest paid in the building and the third-highest on the avenue this year. The buyer paid in cash, closed in 11 days and, according to the records, waived every inspection except one: the roof.
“It is a roof.”
Building board, in a letter to the buyer
The roof
The Bugle understands that the buyer's concern dates to an incident in August in which a figure in red and blue was photographed, by this newspaper, sitting on the parapet of a building three doors down, eating what appeared to be a sandwich. The photo ran on page one. The buyer's team, a source said, "has seen the photo."
The building's managing agent said the roof is "secure, in the usual sense," and that the board has "no plans to install netting, barbed wire or a sign."
The move
The rapper is expected to move in before the end of the year. The seller is moving to Florida, where, a friend said, "the roofs are lower and nobody sits on them." The neighbour who had not been up to the roof in years said she planned to go up "once, to look, and then never again."
The rapper's publicist did not respond to a request for comment. The Bugle's photographer has been assigned to the block.