The double townhouse was the scourge of 69th Street while under construction (Google Maps)
One of the most reviled construction projects in recent Upper West Side memory has quietly reached the finish line — and the deal didn’t just top the block, it topped the entire borough.
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A buyer has signed a contract for 48-50 West 69th Street, the double-wide mega-mansion between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, making it the priciest home to enter contract anywhere in Manhattan last week, according to the weekly market report from Olshan Realty. It was one of 32 properties priced at or above $4 million to go into contract across the borough between May 25 and May 31, up from 29 the week prior.The home’s last asking price was a staggering $85 million. Should it close anywhere near that figure, The Real Deal notes it would become the most expensive home sale ever recorded on the Upper West Side, eclipsing the $26 million townhouse record 248 Central Park West commanded in 2022 — though it would still fall shy of the citywide high-water mark set by the Upper East Side’s Wildenstein mansion at 19 East 64th Street, which traded for $90 million in 2018. Notably, the West 69th Street home wasn’t even being actively marketed when the contract came together.
The property tormented neighbors for years while it was under construction. Business exec Pierre Bastid and jazz singer Malou Beauvoir snapped up the two original townhouses at 48 and 50 West 69th Street in 2011 and 2012 for a combined $24.5 million, demolished both in 2018, and then spent the better part of a decade welding them into a single colossus — a process that left block residents airing grievances of dust, fumes, relentless noise, and dead plants. Some moved away entirely. The finished home hit the market for $85 million in March 2024. By then, the couple had reportedly soured on living there at all: the Wall Street Journal reported that Bastid had intended to make it his primary residence before “world and personal events” pulled his focus toward Europe, with a source tying the decision to sell to the pair’s divorce.
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What that price buys is hard to overstate. The residence stretches 41.5 feet wide across roughly 19,600 square feet and eight levels, with 25 rooms strung together by a post-tensioned limestone floating staircase. Among the highlights: a 38-foot-wide living room with 24-foot ceilings and dual wood-burning fireplaces, a 55-foot indoor lap pool, a jacuzzi, a fitness center and yoga space, and a full-floor primary suite topping 2,000 square feet.Have a news tip? Send it to us here!
