One of Hollywood’s most successful and enduring couples, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, long made their home on a 6.8-acre spread in Westport, Connecticut. For decades, they also maintained a penthouse pied-à-terre that Woodward, sixteen years after Newman’s death, has just hoisted onto the market for $9.95 million. Maintenance charges tally up to more than $13,000 per month, according to listings held by Noble Black and Jennifer Stillman of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
According to The New York Times, the couple acquired the penthouse in the early 1980s and used it for weeks-long stays in the city and for entertaining prominent, high-powered friends such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Tom Cruise, Cher, and Harry Belafonte. The sale is being handled by the couple’s children on behalf of Woodward, who largely retreated from public life after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007. Carefully maintained but not updated much in recent years, the top-floor spread retains original prewar features like nearly 11-foot ceilings, herringbone wood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, and decorative wood moldings and built-ins.
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Newman was a skilled jazz and blues pianist who kept a grand piano in the living room.
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The apartment is one of two penthouses atop a handsome, J.E.R. Carpenter-designed limestone-clad building, which was completed in 1925 and stands at the corner of East 93rd Street and Fifth Avenue across from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. One of the more distinguished cooperative apartment houses on Fifth Avenue, other notable residents over the years include another entertainment industry couple who have been married for decades, Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollan, and James Gorman, the former CEO of Morgan Stanley, who will become chairman of The Walt Disney Company next year.
Essentially set up as a one-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms and a powder room, the penthouse pad spans about 3,000 square feet. Two terraces add another 2,300 square feet of space, one east-facing with sweeping sunrise views over Central Park and the other with north, west and south city and sunset views.
Newman, a racecar driver as well as a skilled pianist, once kept a grand piano in the 36-foot-long living room that has a fireplace at one end and a hidden walk-in dry bar at the other. The adjacent dining room has a wall of built-in shelves, while the kitchen is functional if quite dated with tile that dates to the 1980s. The service areas around the kitchen include a butler’s pantry, a breakfast room with terrace access and a spacious laundry room.
The dining room features original wood moldings and built-ins.
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Off the foyer is a study that can be used as a second bedroom, while the spacious primary suite is a combination of two smaller bedrooms. There are two walk-in closets, a tiled bathroom and access to a huge wrap-around terrace. Woodward owns a separate two-bedroom apartment on the ground floor, which was used as an office, gym and guest space, and is reported to be available for purchase separately.
Newman and Woodward are show business legends with storied careers and long lists of accolades. Between them they received 15 Academy Award nominations. Woodward took home a best actress award for the 1957 film The Three Faces of Eve, while Newman won his best actor trophy for Martin Scorsese’s 1986 movie “The Color of Money” and was also honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994.
Click here for more photos of the Fifth Avenue apartment.
Evan Joseph Studios
Source: Luxury - robbreport.com
