How edgy! It just wouldn't be Soho without a wood beam.
Leon Patitsas is no Aristotle Onassis, but that doesn't mean the Greek shipowner can't get a small slice of Manhattan of his own. The London-born scion of the prominent Hellenic shipping family (no self-respecting shipping scion, after all, would deign to be birthed in his ethnic homeland) just picked up a loft at 459 West Broadway. It's no Olympic Tower, and it doesn't quite float, but it will do. We suppose.
Sellers Joyce Allaire and Bernard Patrick Cooney III picked up the fifth-floor pad back in 2005, back before the Prada Intifada had driven all of the real New Yorkers out of what has now become a low-rise version of Times Square. They paid just $2.2 million for the nearly-3,000-square-foot, three-bedroom loft—a far cry from the $5.5 million that Mr. Patistas has to drop on the unit today.
In case Mr. Patitsas wants to get his feet wet.
And even $5.5 million wasn't a sure thing. "We actually had two back-ups at the price," said Sotheby's broker Christopher Au, who shared the listing with Keith Copley, "but the other ones had mortgage contingencies—the one that went through did not." (Mortgage contingencies, which allow a would-be buyer to back out and take their deposit with them if the bank won't make the home loan, are increasingly a liability in today's inventory-constrained market.) And the listing didn't last long—Mr. Au says that the home was only on the market for about two weeks before the eventual buyer was found.
Mr. Au also pointed out that at around $1,800 per square foot, the price of the co-op hit condo levels. "It's somewhat lenient, it's a downtown co-op. Still a co-op, but it's not like Park Avenue—they let foreigners purchase." (Who else, after all, would buy within a three-block radius of an Apple store?)
And now that he's landed the Manhattan pied-à-terre, what conquest will Mr. Patisas pursue next? A presidential widow, perhaps? Nancy Reagan would doubtless be an invaluable addition to any Greek shipping heir's hip downtown loft.