After trying for more than a year to sell the Chelsea Mercantile condo he once shared with his ex-wife, Bobby Flay has found an alternative recipe for salvaging some equity. The celebrity chef has rented the duplex for $22,500 a month. According to listing notes, the unit went off the market in mid October.
On the heels of a bitter divorce from his wife of 10 years, Stephanie March (“Law & Order: SVU”), Flay had listed his Chelsea Mercantile duplex (units 8H and 9H) for $7.95 million. When it did not sell, Flay had tried chopping the list price to $6.995 million, but still did not get a deal.
Flay’s apartment spans 3,204 square feet, has 3 bedrooms and 3 baths, but the obvious attraction is a top-of-the-line open-concept kitchen with double dishwashers, Viking appliances and walk-in pantry.
The home has a townhouse sensibility with an open stairway joining the floors. On the eighth floor is the kitchen, which opens to the dining and living room area. At one end of the living room is a built-in bookshelf spanning an entire wall complete with a rolling library ladder. Also on the floor is a bedroom and office enclosed with a wall of steel casement windows that adds to the open-floor plan feel. Upstairs is the master bedroom with an en suite, a third bedroom and a tin-ceilinged rec room currently furnished with a handsome pool table and bar. This room could be easily converted into a fourth bedroom.
Flay’s apartment is located in the Chelsea Mercantile building (circa 1908), where the National Cloak & Suit Company operated. Regarded as the Amazon.com of its time, the company was a mail-order manufacturer for women’s clothes. After WWII, it was converted to the Veterans Administration Building and in 2000, converted to condos.
It is a full service building, with a full-time doorman, concierge, valet service for cleaning, storage, gym, childrens’ playroom and a 10,000- sq ft landscaped roof deck with views down to the Statue of Liberty.
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