People’s feelings about Co-op Boards range from utter disdain to acceptance as a means to control one’s environment. Madonna is apparently of the former as she is filing a lawsuit against her Co-op Board at Harperly Hall for refusing to approve her purchase of her neighbor’s apartment. from the NY Post:
The pop icon has filed suit against her Central Park West building’s co-op board, charging that it wrongfully blocked her from buying a neighbor’s apartment.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the singer says the board recently stopped her from closing on a deal to buy Julie Clark Thayer’s home. Madonna is seeking a court order allowing the sale to go through, as well as legal fees and expenses. Board president Phyllis Harrison-Ross did not return a call for comment.
The Daily News also chimes in with some interesting "Madonna haters" leaving comments. This one is particularly hilarious:
These celebs are just like athletes, They think they are entitled to whatever it is they want! This ***** wants to break thru the walls of an historic building and make more space for her self and she has the money to do it and she thinks thats enough! To **** with the co op board! "I wan’t it and you have to give it to me!" Its no wonder the rest of the world wants to take a shot at us when they read **** like this! The co op board of the other building was right in rejecting this demanding *****! She has too much money and not enough brains, Pig!
Can you say envy, jealousy and resentment? Good grief, she has the money to purchase the neighbors space and the Co-op could easily oversee the combination. I would love to have been a fly on the wall during that Co-op Board meeting. I also wish that the bill forcing the co-op to disclose their reasons for the rejection had already passed.
A colleague of mine recently had 2 Board turndowns for the same apartment in the Dakota with the second coming after an officer on the Board of Directors promised his neighbor, the purchaser, that s/he would be approved for the combination. I know that many shareholders in buildings that exhibit such exquisite architecture as The Dakota and Harperly Hall are reluctant to compromise the integrity of the original layouts. That said, some even turn down combinations that would restore apartments to their original layouts. There is quite a bit to consider when allowing a massive combination project to proceed in such an old building as well. I guess we will never know what Madonna’s Board was thinking.
