Big Ticket | Sold for $19.4 Million

By ROBIN FINN

A striking 14-room duplex at 795 Fifth Avenue, partly designed by Richard Meier and owned for decades by the wealthiest woman in Argentina, Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, sold for $19.4 million and was the biggest sale of the week, according to city records.

The co-op apartment is on the 20th and 21st floors at the Pierre hotel, where the white-glove amenities include twice-daily maid service (covered by the $20,123 monthly maintenance fee). It had been on the market barely a week in June 2011 when it attracted a bid for its original asking price of $19.5 million.

Mrs. Fortabat, the widow of the industrialist Alfredo Fortabat, was 90 when the duplex went into contract and died this winter before the closing, which was held up by permit issues relating to an interior staircase and a Meier-designed greenhouse on the terrace. The slight reduction in the sale price was occasioned by the delay. One detail that was apparently not an issue was buyer liquidity: the co-op board at 795 Fifth Avenue frowns upon financing, requiring all cash.

The unit, Nos. 2001/2104, is distinguished by 6,100 square feet of interior living space, and on its upper floor, the feature that captivated the buyer, who acquired the property through a limited liability corporation, Krumau, was a 1,700-square-foot Meier-designed terrace facing Central Park.

According to Roger Erickson of Sotheby's International Realty, who represented the seller, identified in city records as the Celadon Corporation of Zurich, it is one of just two trophy terraces at the Pierre, which opened in 1930 and in 2005 underwent a $100 million renovation. He said the indoor and outdoor space on the 21st floor had been one of Mr. Meier's earliest design projects. The place was used as a bachelor pad before its conversion by Mrs. Fortabat to the elegant duplex, which Mr. Erickson described as “very rare for a pre war property because of its combination of size, views and a fabulously insane terrace.”

All the Pierre lacks is a world-class kitchen, but Sirio Maccioni scheduled to open Sirio, a Florentine/Tuscan restaurant, there next month.

Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.