Long-listed UES Mansion Snags Signed Contract

Four years and $30 million in price cuts later, a Gilded Age mansion on the Upper East Side finally found a buyer.

The townhouse at 973 Fifth Avenue, asking just under $50 million, was the priciest home in Manhattan to snag a signed contract last week, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly report. The 25-foot-wide property spans six stories and 16,000 square feet.

The seller, an LLC linked to former Goldman Sachs partner David Leuschen, purchased the home in 2012 for $42 million and renovated it. The property, which has 11 bedrooms, seven bathrooms and five kitchens, has drifted on and off the market since 2021, when it was initially listed for $80 million.

If it had sold for the original asking price, the home would have broken a record for the city’s priciest townhouse sale, beating a $77 million deal for financier Phillip Falcone’s townhouse on East 67th Street.

Corcoran’s Carrie Chiang had the listing. The Modlin Group’s Adam Modlin, who previously represented the seller, brought the buyer.

The Fifth Avenue abode was one of 41 contracts signed for homes in the borough asking $4 million or more between Feb. 10 and Feb. 16, including 26 condos, 10 co-ops and five townhouses. The total, which was up from 29 deals inked in the previous period, was the highest since May 2022, when 43 Manhattan properties found buyers.

The second most expensive home to enter contract was a condo at Aurora Capital Associates’ 140 Jane Street, with an asking price of $22 million — up from $20.5 million when the building launched sales in September.

Unit 3N spans 4,600 square feet and has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also features a conservatory and Juliet balcony.

The West Village apartment was one of 20 condos sponsor sales last week, the highest total since the end of February in 2022. The average asking price for the units was roughly $3,000 per square foot.

Corcoran’s Tara King-Brown is heading sales at the 15-unit condo, which includes amenities such as a doorman, porte-cochere, parking garage and lap pool. Nine of the apartments have sold since the fall with an average asking price of $5,400 per square foot.

The homes’ combined asking price was $366 million, which works out to an average price of $9 million and a median of $6.5 million. The typical home spent more than 960 days on the market and was discounted 16 percent from the original listing price.

The priciest homes to hit the market last week included a four-bedroom penthouse at 111 West 57th Street, asking $56 million, and a sprawling townhouse at 12 East 64th Street asking $54 million, according to the Eklund-Gomes team’s weekly report.