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Mr. Modine was not pleased that some of his kids' artwork showed up on Twitter.
Most celebrities scrupulously shield their real estate purchases through a web of limited liability corporations, and most brokers steadfastly refuse to discuss their bold-faced clients. Not Matthew Modine: when he wanted to sell his Chelsea pad at Loft 25, he made a video.
Mr. Modine didn't get the full $2.29 million for the one-bedroom-with-office duplex at 420 West 25th Street, but his video was quite a hit, according to Halstead broker Mark Friedman, who had the listing. "It definitely got more hits than any other video we've done in the history of Halstead." And Mr. Modine and wife Caridad, did walk away with $2.1 million—a respectable premium over the $1.73 million they paid for the 1,668-square-foot spread in 2008.
The buyer—a graduate student at New York University named Karim Tartoussieh—was not so lucky, as he (or perhaps his parents) ended up paying a bit more than he had anticipated. He was searching for a two-bedroom in Chelsea in the range of $1.5 million to $1.8 million, he told the New York Times in December, but apparently had to settle on the not-quite-two-bedroom $2.1 million apartment.
The unit was decorated by Ms. Modine, according to Mr. Friedman—nothing too drastic, though they did re-tile the kitchen. The couple also left their mark on the entire building: "They're very health-conscious," Mr. Friedman told The Observer, and they had the property managers "add a water filtration system to the entire building, so you don't have to use Brita filters."
The first-floor unit includes a terrace of other 80 square feet, along with a communal garden space—"It's Matthew Modine's garden space!" the actor awkwardly intones on the video voiceover, though the garden space is no longer Mr. Modine's, and appears to be communal in any case.
Though he did make the movie, he wasn't totally pleased with the publicity the unit got. "They left family photographs and their children's artwork on the walls of the master bedroom," reported the Times, with Mr. Modine commenting, "I would have liked to remove these items, and wish I had before some photos began to appear on Twitter."
