Sitting at the top of the Woolworth Building in Manhattan is the approximately 12,000-square-foot penthouse known as the "Pinnacle." It's been on the market for six years. It finally sold… For less than a third of what it was originally listed for in 2017.
After having been initially listed for $110 million, the Pinnacle just sold for $30 million to art collector Scott Lynn, CEO of the art investment platform Masterworks.
Perhaps one of the reasons that the Pinnacle spent so long in search of a buyer is because of its unusual size and shape. Described by WSJ as "a lofty white cylinder with a quirky hodgepodge of windows," the property was being sold as "raw space," with no interior furnishings or even completed construction, meaning that whoever bought it would also be in charge of completing its design and configuring its rooms.
(Photo by Ben Hider/Getty Images)
Ken Horn is president of Alchemy Properties, the company that converted the space into a penthouse and spent six years in search of a buyer. Horn told WSJ that many different potential buyers took a look at the place over the years, all with unique plans of their own. One saw it as a "one-bedroom bachelor pad," while another was more imaginative, floating the prospect of "installing a small office on a hydraulic lift so that, by pressing a button, he could raise himself up to the level of the observation deck while he worked."
Horn says that the potential of the space was lost on many prospective buyers who had the resources to buy it in the first place:
"All the buyers who came in were affluent and well-heeled. But I would say 50% to 70% walked in, even with their architects, and said, 'Great space, what do I do with it?"
As for what Lynn plans to do with the penthouse, that remains to be seen, and he hasn't commented publicly on the sale as of yet. But given his occupation as an art collector, it makes sense that he might see the space as a way to display some of his collection, or even as a kind of piece of architectural artwork itself.
