For $26 million, architecture buffs with big bank accounts might be tempted to live like storied architect Frank Lloyd Wright. We mean that literally. The suite at the famed Plaza Hotel at 1 Central Park South where the modernist master lived from 1954 through 1959 while his Guggenheim Museum was constructed, has just hit the market months after its current owners, Lisa and James Cohen, first tried to attract a buyer.
Suite 409, otherwise known as the Frank Lloyd Wright Suite at 1 Central Park West, had been listed for sale in April 2015 for $39.5 million before the Cohens dropped the price to $32 million in October.
Despite a complete renovation in 2011, the owners are looking to move the famous unit for $26 million. The suite spans 4,000 square feet and includes 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. That renovation was carried out by Louis Lisboa of VL Architects and interior designer Susanna Maggard. The last recorded sale was in 2009 for $13 million.
While it’s a far cry from the Fallingwater sensibility that proved FLW to be a transformative architect and purveyor of form-fits-function design, the unit is pretty marvelous. It was featured in Architectural Digest last year, detailing the backstory on the Cohen’s determination to purchase the famous suite — to use as their NYC pied-a-terre.
In the case of Lisa and James Cohen, who were married in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom in the early ’80s, the connection is particularly powerful. Today James is the chairman of Hudson Media, as well as a partner in Dufry, the world’s largest duty-free retailer, while Lisa is the home editor for DuJour magazine. All of which means the two know a good thing when they see it. So when the couple learned that a prime corner unit in the Plaza—which several years ago was partially converted into some of the city’s most sought-after apartments—had become available, the opportunity was too enticing to pass up. As it turned out, the residence encompassed the very rooms Lisa’s family had occupied on the eve of her wedding. “My mother still has the room key!” Lisa confesses. Boosting the apartment’s appeal was the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright had lived there in the ’50s when he was overseeing construction of the Guggenheim Museum.
Hudson Media is the company behind Hudson News — those ubiquitous newsstands you see in airports and stores around the country. The Cohens’ primary residence is in Alpine, NJ.
> See more photos of Suite #409
Related:
