Half-million-dollar-a-month rental at Pierre Hotel breaks New York record
A New York City rental just broke the half-million-dollar barrier.
Five hundred thousand dollars a month, that is.
An unnamed "international renter" will pay that amount for the entire 39th floor of the luxe Pierre Hotel overlooking Central Park, the Wall Street Journal reported.
It's the most anyone has ever paid for a residential lease in the city, the president of an appraisal firm told the Journal.
And that's not counting a second "Grand Suite" that the same tenant is renting for what the listing agent calls "an extended family-entourage situation": the Getty Suite at about $150,000 a month, named for previous Pierre Hotel owner John Paul Getty.
The Pierre was built in 1930 by Charles Pierre Casalasco, who lamented what he saw as Prohibition's coarsening of high society. "Debutante parties became gin parties," said Pierre (who had taken Pierre as his last name, dropping the Casalasco). "Parents lost control of their children. ... Society no longer exists."
Pierre sought instead to mark his hotel with "simplicity and refinement."
In less than three years, he went bankrupt.
The 39th floor has never been available to rent before. Its $500,000-a-month price tag may boggle the mind -- but consider its typical nightly fee of $30,000 cited by the Journal (or $900,000 in a 30-day month), and it almost looks like a bargain.
Almost.
