Another High Priced Pad at 834 Goes on the Market

SELLERS: Leslie and Abigail Wexner
LOCATION: 834 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
PRICE: quietly asking $60,000,000
SIZE: Huge

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Turns out Araxia Buckhantz's $30,000,000 two bedroom sprawler in the unimaginably exclusive apartment house at 834 Fifth Avenue in New York City isn't the only grand apartment for sale in the white glove building. According to the always on top of things Max Abelson at the New York Observer, billionaire retailer Leslie Wexner has quietly foisted his little used doo-plex on to the market with a butt clenching $60,000,000 asking price.

That's right children, sixty million big ones. Your Mama needs a nerve pill just to get our damn mind around a number that big.

For all the children not caught up on the whos and whats about American billionaire biznessmen, let Your Mama school you for a moment. Mister Wexner, a man whom Your Mama indirectly used to work for, started The Limited clothing stores which eventually popped up in just about every mall in America and made the man richer than the damn Pope. Mister Wexner, a man who knows how to mint money, has since bought and started a string of super successful mall brands such as Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, The White Barn Candle Company and perhaps the jewel in his retail tiara, the venerable Henri Bendel department store.

Reports from the time reveal Mister Wexner, who had blue tinted hair, a much younger wifey and an even younger male assistant the last time we ran into him, purchased his 6 bedroom doo-plex fixer upper in 1997 for $9,000,000 after it sat on the market for several years. Years! At 834! The seller was a mysterious gal named Eduarda Crociani, of Italy and Monaco, according to a New York Times article. It was also reported at the time that Miz Crociani owned another apartment adjoining the lower floor of her doo-plex which she sold for $4,200,000 the year prior to selling the big doo-plex to Mister Wexner.

At the time of Mister Wexner's purchase the 16 room apartment was reportedly in sad shape and did not even have air conditioning. A loose tongued and wonderfully catty source even told Mister Abelson, "You almost gagged to death" in the summer swelter. Of course Mister and Missus Wexner had the apartment all did up and did over–allegedly by notoriously autocratic high society architect Thierry Despont–in a style akin to "a grand Virgina home or an English men's club," according to Mister Abelson's bean spiller.

Your Mama recommends the children do not hold their collective breath waiting for photos and floor plans to pop up on the internets because similar to the legendary 30+ room doo-plex apartment at 740 Park Avenue that widowed philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross is reported to be quietly offering to qualified buyers at "over $60,000,000," there will not be any advertising, online listings with photos or online floor plans that Your Mama and the children could swoon and swan over and there will certainly not be any open houses. We'll just have to use our over-active imaginations to picture the stuffy grandeur.

Mister and Missus Wexner undoubtedly have several homes to which they can wing to aboard their private jet, but their primary residence is a vast, perfectly symmetrical and multi-winged Georgian inspired mega-mansion that sits on 300 and some acres of flat farmland in New Albany, OH. The dee-luxe digs are said to measure in excess of 45,000 square feet and the property includes a long, long, loooong tree-lined driveway, several ponds, numerous barns, a large complex of stables and riding rings for the horsies, a swimming pool complex with not one, but two pool houses plus changing pavilions, a tennis court with even more pavilions, a grass volleyball court and a reflecting pond nearly 200 feet long.

As do many biznessmen with big money to burn, Mister Wexner also owns a behemoth boat, called Limitless, which at a staggering 315+ feet was the longest private yacht afloat when it was built in the late 1990s but which has since been eclipsed by a dozen or more mega-yachts including (but not limited to) Paul Allen's 414 foot Octopus, Larry Ellison's 452 foot long Rising Sun and Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz's cruise ship-sized floater Al Salamah which reportedly measures 456+ feet long and features an indoor swimming pool under a glass roof.

photo: New York Observer