SELLER: Nancy Sale Frey Johnson RashadLOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $21,000,000
SIZE: 5,500 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to the eagle eyes of our informant Hot Chocolate we've learned that New York socialite Nancy Sale (Frey) Johnson (Rashad)–who we understand is called Sale by her mates and pals–has listed her Manhattan triplex maisonette for $21,000,000.
In 1977 the former model was married to Woody Johnson, scion to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and the current owner of the New York Jets. Before the Johnsons headed to the court of dee-vorce in 2001, the quiet but extraordinarily well-connected couple made three children. One of those children was bisexual socialite Casey Johnson whose short, antics-filled life ended in late 2009 due to some sort of snafu about her Diabetes and not taking the proper meds at the right time.
Mister Johnson, for what it's worth, has long owned an apartment at the very posh and über exclusive 834 Fifth Avenue building where, among other shockingly rich bizness barons, multi-billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch lives in a titanic 20-room triplex penthouse for which he paid a staggering $44,000,000 in late 2004. While it seems a shame and a pity to let it sit empty, it has been reported that Mister Johnson actually lives on the other side of Central Park at the equally expensive but far less elegant Trump International Hotel & Tower.
Soon after the Johnson's dee-vorce, the newly single and rich, rich, rich ex-Missus Johnson needed a place to live. So she went out and snatched up a triplex maisonette in a low-profile building just one short block south from her former marital home at 834 Fifth Avenue. That certainly made it easy for the movers but even still we doubt they simply carted Miz Johnson's things from building to building in a shopping car as Your Mama would have done.
Anyhoo, according to a New York Times report, ex-Missus Johnson paid about $10,000,000 for the triplex maisonette in August of 2002.
In 2007, just about the time her daughter Casey was adopting a baby from Kazakhstan, ex-Missus Johnson became the fourth wife of professional football player turned sportscaster Ahmad Rashad. As far as Your Mama knows they remain a happily married pair. It's believed that Mister and Missus Rashad will raise Casey Johnson's orphaned orphan child.
Listing information for Missus Frey Johnson Rashad's mansion-sized maisonette indicates the 10 room triplex has 5 bedrooms and 5 poopers. Your Mama's beady little eyes, however, counted 5.5 poopers on the floor plan (above). Can't forget the half bathroom down in the basement. A private entrance on Fifth Avenue opens into a large foyer with a dramatic curved staircase that climbs to a smaller but central foyer on the maisonette's second floor. To the right a corner library with sidewalk views, fireplace and adjacent office and to the left, a bedroom suite with entry hall, a wall of closets and two poopers.The second floor, just high enough to peep over the taxi cabs and trees in front of the building, has a long formal living room with fireplace. A long curving corridor that leads back from the formal generously scaled dining room to the apartment's service areas that include an eat-in kitchen, large laundry room and a slim little room at the very back of the apartment perfect for a Pilates machine or some other type of body torture equipment.
The corner master suite includes a good sized but hardly lavishly sized pooper and a huge dressing room/closet area. While it would be utterly magnificent to have a bedroom-sized dressing room, we find it a little unfortunate that, in the case of Miz Frey Johnson Rashad's residence, one much trek through the pooper to get there. This is probably fine most of the time, but this set up can easily result in a debilitating olfactory event when all you wanted to do was get a pair of damn socks.
A long, dead straight corridor, which can be conveniently closed off to make the grand if not gargantuan apartment feel a bit more intimate, leads from the second floor entrance gallery to two large guest bedrooms, each with walk-in closet and private terliting facility.
An all but windowless basement level, which we hope and pray that Mister Rashad has not turned into some sort of "man-cave," has a built in wet bar, half pooper, wine cellar and two large storage rooms, rare commodities in even large Manhattan apartments..
Although the vast majority of the 14 residences at 817 Fifth Avenue are owned by bizness concerns and corporate entities, property records do reveal the identities of a a couple of the other residents. Casino king Steve Wynn and his then wife Elaine Wynn picked up a pied a terre at 817 in 2001 for about seven million smackers. In July of 2009, on the heels of word that Mister and Missus Wynn would dee-vorce for the second time the dee-vorcing duo put their pad at 817 on the market at $25,000,000, a price that included all the furnishings. In October of 2010 according to property records, soon to be ex-Missus Wynn bought the 2 bedroom and 3.5 pooper apartment from her soon to be ex-huzband for $17,155,125. Presumably this had something to do with the erstwhile couple's dee-vorce settlement but what do we really know?
Property records show that in February of 2001 mighty-fine actor Richard Gere bought a 6th floor apartment at 817 and sold it in April of 2005 for $8,600,000 to Marielle and Edmond Safra, the nephew of formidable high society doyenne Lily Safra and her deceased huzband Edmond. Something seems fishy there because although $8,600,000 is an ass-load of moo-lah it's nowhere near the clams laid out by textile tycoon Isaac Dabah and his wife Ivette who bought their high floor perch at 817 in April of 2003 for $16,701,000.
The listing of her triplex maisonette in Manhattan isn't the only real estate news Miz Frey Johnson Rashad has made in the last 12 months. In December of 2009, she and Mister Rashad shelled out $4,950,000 for a sprawling French Palladian style mansion in Jupiter, FL located behind the guarded gates of the the fancy-pants Bear's Club community. The main mansion measures 7,105 square feet, according to marketing materials Your Mama teased up out of the interweb, and includes 4 bedrooms and five full and 2 half poopers, one near the front door for guests and the other a cabana bath that opens both into the family room on onto the colossal covered terrace that looks over the swimming pool, pond an golf course.
The three family bedrooms, each with walk in closet and private facilities, are well separated from the multi-winged master suite that includes a semi-circular sitting area, French doors to the terrace overlooking the swimming pool, and dual poopers, each comprised of a vast bathroom with separate terlit cubicle and custom fitted walk-in closet. One of the master poopers includes an adjacent exercise room with what looks on the floor plan like a wet bar. Now, chickens, Your Mama likes a nip or two of liquor to keep us fresh and alert when we "exercise" but, let's be honest, how many other people consider a swig of an ice cold gin & tonic as part of the rotation?
A detached 615 square foot guest house, connected to the covered terrace by a colonnaded breezeway, offers lucky overnight guests privacy and luxury with a living room with kitchenette, bedroom, dressing area, pooper and a huge roof terrace some of which is open to the scorching southern Florida sunshine and some of which is covered.
Additional amenities of the mansion include something called a "club room," which just sounds to Your Mama like a room designed for boozing, a covered outdoor entertaining terrace with fireplace and nearby wet bar, and a vast kitchen complex comprised of family room, breakfast room, the kitchen itself, a walk-in pantry and a walk-in wine storage room. An attached garage holds three cars plus a golf cart or two, which is to be expected of a posh pad in a private, high-toned golf community.
The rear terraces as well as the 45-foot long swimming pool and raised spa overlook a grassy yard that spills into a small pond. In a lesser affluent neighborhood, this pond would likely be fetid, but we imagine that in a posh place like The Bear's Club these things get taken care of before they're a problem. Beyond the pond, the rolling greens of the club's Jack Nicklaus designed golf course stretch out to the horizon.
The children may find it interesting to know that when professional basketballer and notorious real estate size queen Michael Jordon completes his planned 26,000 square foot residential beast at The Bear's Club he will be the next door neighbor of Mister and Missus Rashad.
photo (exterior): Property Shark
floor plan: Corcoran via the New York Times
photos and floor plan (Florida): The Bear's Club Realty
