A storied Fifth Avenue co-op building has lost a billionaire tenant.
Norma Lerner, widow of credit card bigwig Al Lerner, sold her Lenox Hill apartment for $10.5 million this week, according to city records.
The apartment, in a well-known limestone building off East 63rd Street, offers a private entrance, curving staircases and ornate moldings, along with four bedrooms. Famous tenants of the building have included fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, philanthropist Louise Crane, socialite Jayne Wrightsman, billionaire Lily Safra and hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, according to reporting from the New York Observer and Bloomberg News.
The buyers of the apartment include several trusts, with one associated with Chloë Richards Rubenstein, whose LinkedIn profile lists her as a creative director at Endeavor, a media company. Richards married Lee Rubenstein, a managing director at investment firm Francisco Partners, in 2019, according to a writeup in Vogue.
Lerner first listed the apartment in 2020 for $20 million, nearly double what it eventually sold for. It was taken off the market on and off over the next several years, with the price lowered to $14 million in March.
Al Lerner made his fortune at credit card giant MBNA. In 1998 he purchased the Cleveland Browns football team for $530 million. He died from brain cancer in 2002 at age 69. He was a major benefactor of Columbia University, where he was an alumnus, with a hall in his name.
Norma Lerner is worth $1.2 billion, according to recent estimates from Forbes. It is unclear how or when she acquired the apartment or for how much.
The building’s co-op board has rejected some famous and wealthy buyers over the years, including manufacturing heir Fred Koch and casino mogul Steve Wynn, according to the Observer, as well as Revlon chairman Ron Perelman, according to The New York Times. As of 2019 the co-op board has required all purchases to be made in cash.
Jill Roosevelt, the Brown Harris Stevens agent who listed the property, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
