‘Law & Order’ Mariska Hargitay Lists UWS Brownstone For $10.75M

It’s hard to believe actress Mariska Hargitay has been starring as NYPD Lieutenant Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: SVU” for nearly two decades, but when it comes to her living situation, she likes to change things up a bit more. She and her husband, actor Peter Hermann, bought a stunning Upper West Side brownstone for $7 million in 2012, and they’ve now put it on the market for $10.75 million. Hermann told the Wall Street Journal that they’ve decided to sell because their “family needs have changed,” but they’d remain in the neighborhood. The six-story, 6,000+ square-foot home is located at 45 West 84th Street, between Central Park West and Columbus, and is “loaded with color and vibrancy,” according to Hermann, thanks to a collaboration with designer Jeffrey Bilhuber.

The home boasts an elevator, five bedrooms, six bathrooms and three powder rooms, and a vented laundry room. The main parlor floor has a gas fireplace and a modern, mirrored wall. Past here, is a dining room/library that overlooks the kitchen below and the rear garden.

The garden level has another living area, as well as the uber-contemporary (and very yellow) eat-in kitchen in the rear, where the renovation added floor-to-ceiling casement windows to created a double-height space that leads to the landscaped garden. The third floor is dedicated to the master suite and includes a double walk-in closet and dressing room, small terrace, and marble en-suite bath. The fourth and fifth floors each have two bedrooms, all with their own bathrooms and one with its own terrace. Perhaps the best part of the house is the top-floor sun room, which has both north- and south-facing terraces. Back in 2008, Hargitay sold her equally stylish Chelsea penthouse for $8.15 million. She reportedly makes upwards of $500,000 per “Law & Order” episode now, so we don’t think finding a spectacular new family home will be much of an issue.

125-Year-Old Cathedral Finally Declared a City Landmark

On Tuesday the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to designate the 125-year-old Cathedral Church of St. John The Divine, the world’s largest cathedral; in addition, 115 neighboring buildings became the Morningside Heights Historic District. The designated district runs from West 109th to 119th streets between Riverside Drive and Amsterdam Avenue and includes the famously unfinished cathedral and surrounding campus. With the designation, calendared by the LPC in September, comes a 3-D online map that provides more information about the buildings in the district, most of which were constructed between 1900 and 1910, including townhouses dating back to the late 1800s as well as pre-war apartment buildings.
 

Full Morningside Heights Historic District interactive map here.

Commission Chairwoman Meenakshi Srinivasan said in a statement, “The Cathedral is among the most famous church buildings in the world and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year who want to experience this 125-year-old masterpiece and complex with its varied and unique architectural styles…Preservation is not static; it can look towards the future.”

The first phase of construction of the iconic 124-foot French Gothic cathedral happened from 1892 to 1911, and the second phase, from 1916 to 1941, saw the nave completed and connected with the choir; a third phase was begun in 1979 on the western section, which remains unfinished.

Commissioner Shamir-Brown said, “It’s meaningful and important to designate the cathedral as a building that is unfinished. We’re recognizing not only what it was but what it will become. That says something about the potential open-endedness of preservation.”

Enclave at the Cathedral; image: CityRealty

In 2002 the City Council overturned a decision to designate the unfinished cathedral in an attempt to preserve the entire Cathedral Close. Two rental towers known as Enclave at the Cathedral that flank the cathedral’s northern exposure were excluded from the site’s designation. As 6sqft previously reported, the new rental buildings developed by the Brodsky Organization were involved in a controversy for their position obstructing the cathedral.

Amy Schumer Just Bought A $12M UWS Penthouse

America’s comedy darling remains an uptown girl.

Amy Schumer’s search for a new New York City home appears to have come to an end with the purchase of a $12.15 million penthouse at 190 Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The duplex, a 4,500-square-foot, five-bedroom home, is perched atop a turn of the century building and features a wall of glass doors, coffered glass ceilings, a custom stone and glass gas fireplace, a wrap around terrace and a separate bedroom wing.

The comedian and actress appears to have gotten a sweet deal, since the property was first listed for $18.9 million last April.

The digs are certainly a massive step up from Schumer’s old home, a townhouse apartment on West 80th Street that’s currently on the market for $1.63 million with broker Adam Modlin .

Schumer and boyfriend Ben Hanisch have reportedly been scouting new properties for over a month, and also checked out a $15 million mansion at 352 Riverside Drive.

Though it’s unclear if Hanisch is moving into the building with Schumer, he should count himself lucky that it has two floors.

“I’ve been here for two and a half years and for a while had my comedian boyfriend move in with me, but sharing a studio is a bad idea,” she told Brick Underground in 2011 of her first Upper West Side pad. “We broke up for a month just because of that and we are now happily together living separately. I don’t think I ever want to share an apartment with anyone again, although it would be nice if he lived upstairs.”

Lisa Lippman and Scott Moore of Brown Harris Stevens had the Riverside listing. Lippman declined to confirm the deal, and a representative for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.