The stock market may be tanking, but on the Upper East Side, a neighborhood with deep ties to Wall Street, a seller is betting there’s still a taker for a pricey co-op.
Russell Wiese, a marketing executive with money management firm Davis Selected Advisers, and his wife, Megan, a former teacher who works with educational nonprofits, have listed a 7,200-square-foot triplex apartment at East 79th Street and Madison Avenue for $29.5 million, according to an ad that appeared Thursday.
Featuring nine bedrooms, five gas fireplaces and four exposures, including views of Central Park, the co-op also offers two kitchens, a game room and a circular staircase connecting all the floors. Also included is a separate studio apartment on a different floor for staff.
The fifth-priciest co-op currently for sale in the city, according to StreetEasy, the unit also stands to be among the most expensive to sell in a year if the current price holds. But that’s no sure thing in a lukewarm market where even trophy properties marketed to affluent buyers who don’t require a mortgage have languished.
Indeed, a Fifth Avenue co-op that belonged to the late philanthropist Jayne Wrightsman nabbed one of the highest deals in months when it sold in January for $27.5 million. But when the full-floor, six-bedroom apartment initially came up for sale in 2019, its brokers sought a much more ambitious $50 million, based on StreetEasy data.
The priciest co-op to close in recent months appears to be in a building on nearby East 67th Street, where a five-bedroom corner unit traded in June for $36 million to billionaire Jim Coulter, co-founder of buyout firm TPG.
The Wieses created their renovated home by combining units in the prewar brick-and-limestone building, which has fewer than two dozen apartments. The city register indicates they purchased a 14th-floor unit in 2008 for $6.5 million and later acquired a 12th-floor apartment plus the staff room in 2011 for $2.9 million. But it’s unclear from public records and marketing materials if those two deals account for the entirety of the unit now for sale or if the assemblage of the property involved a third transaction for a 13th-floor apartment.
Nikki Field, the Sotheby’s International Realty agent listing the property, told Crain’s she had privately tested the lofty asking price before unveiling the home to the public and found it to be on the mark. She also shrugged off Wall Street’s volatility.
“Contrary to all the tariff-initiated financial turmoil, our industry has seen a flood of buyers focused on the security of residential real estate investments this week,” Field added. So far this year, “we clearly have been managing a flight to old-school stability and quiet wealth.”
