The copywriter behind the long-running “I’m Worth It” ad campaign for L’Oreal hair color turns out to have had a Central Park co-op that was worth a notable amount.
The estate of Ilon Specht, who died at 81 in May, has sold a 4,500-square-foot apartment at the elite Dakota co-op for $8.1 million, according to a tax record that appeared in the city register Thursday.
Specht reportedly bought the four-bedroom, three-and-half-bath unit in 1976, though a property record couldn’t immediately be found. Still, that purchase would have come three years after the then-McCann-Erickson executive rocketed to fame with her tagline, which came to be seen as less of a plug for a beauty product and more of a feminist rallying cry.
The buyers of the apartment, based on public records, appear to be Renen Hallak, a co-founder and the CEO of AI storage company Vast Data, and his wife, Yael, a journalist for Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The buyer in the deal, which closed Feb. 14, is officially described in the register as The Spinoza Three Trust, though Yael Hallak is listed in the same filing as its trustee.
Specht’s side of the deal was handled by her son, Brady Case, records show.
Renen Hallak’s nine-year-old firm, which has counted NASA among its clients, was valued at more than $9 billion at the time of its last round of venture financing, a $118 million series in December 2023.
The property appears to have been shopped around privately, so details about the apartment are scarce. But its interiors can be glimpsed in a trailer for a documentary about Specht that was released last year. It reveals bookshelf-lined rooms with soaring ceilings and walls painted in lustrous shades of red and blue.
Specht has said that the man-dominated ad industry she worked in since she was a teenager didn’t seem to ever want to give women much in the way of dialogue in TV spots. That was apparently still the case in 1973, when she coined the “I’m Worth It” phrase for L’Oreal’s Preference line.
The campaign, with some tweaks (it became “We’re Worth It” on occasion), endured even after Specht stepped down from the ad business in 2000. Model Kendall Jenner, actor Helen Mirren and singer Beyonce have uttered variations of the line in recent versions of the spot.
As a bold-faced name from the 1970s, Specht likely felt right at home at the Dakota, a Gothic landmark with gables and a courtyard at Central Park West. Residents of the 10-story, 100-unit building through the years have included Roberta Flack, the “Killing Me Softly” singer who died Feb. 24, as well as actor Lauren Bacall, football great Joe Namath and “Archie Bunker” portrayer Carroll O’Connor.
The co-op was of course also home to ex-Beatle John Lennon, who with his musician wife, Yoko Ono, bought their first unit in 1973 and came to own several apartments in the building. Lennon was shot dead by an assassin outside the building’s front gate Dec. 8, 1980. Ono reportedly permanently decamped to the couple’s Catskills farm in 2023.
Turnover is somewhat rare in the desirable parkside building. But a 6,000-square-foot unit with 19 park-facing windows owned by Tribeca Film Festival co-founders Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, who are now divorced, has idled for years.
Their former spread first hit the market in 2016 for $39 million and was delisted three years later after failing to find a buyer. The five-bedroom apartment came back to market in September at $19 million, the price it’s still asking today.
