After significantly dropping the price, Madonna has sold her 6,000 square foot Central Park West apartment at Harperley Hall to a prominent hedge fund manager. The diva’s duplex apartment in the 1911 Arts and Crafts-style structure at 41 Central Park West was sold last week to Deepak Narula for considerably less than the $19.995 million asking price, brokers told a local newspaper.
The six-bedroom, eight-bathroom apartment boasts two large living rooms with Juliet balconies and has sweeping views of the park. The apartment was originally listed back in in November for $23.5 million, but marked down in February after it languished without a buyer.
History
Harperly Hall, 41 Central Park West is an apartment building in Manhattan, New York City. The building is located along prestigious Central Park West and was built in 1910. Cast in the Arts and Crafts style, a rarity for New York City, Harperly Hall was designed by Henry W. Wilkerson. The structure was listed as a contributing property to the U.S. federal government designated Central Park West Historic District in 1982 when the district joined the National Register of Historic Places.
Wilkerson and a number of investors purchased the property at the northwest corner of 64th Street and Central Park West in 1909. The investors included Wilkerson, Mary Bookwalter, a decorator, Dwight Tryon, an artist, Wallace Irwin, a humorist and concert manager Loudon Charlton. According to the corporate papers, their goal was to build a cooperative suitable for artists’ studios. The building was named after a manor house in County Durham, England, the Wilkerson’s ancestral home.
By March 1910, construction on Harperly Hall was nearing completion and the building represented the first housing cooperative in the Central Park West area. It officially opened in 1911 with 76 apartments.
Architecture
Wilkerson’s design is unique from the typical apartment building design of the day. He had little experience designing apartment houses and used the Arts and Crafts style liberally throughout the structure. Though the building is cast mostly in this style, it also contains elements of the Neo-Italian Renaissance style.
The facade is brown brick with a limestone base and terra cotta trim. The bricks, rough and mottled, are laid in “undulating lozenges” on the face of the building. This forms a carpet-like texture which gives the building a handmade character. Glazed tiles highlight the surface where they provide colorful displays of gold, turquoise and green. The glazed tile work is most likely the work of ceramicist Henry Mercer.
