A wealthy couple who spent years antagonizing their neighbors and turning two Upper West Side townhouses into a mansion have put the luxury mansion on the market for $85 million.
More than a decade ago, Paris-based businessman Pierre Bastide and his wife, jazz singer Marlou Beauvoir, purchased the property at 48 and 50 West 69th Street, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West in Manhattan. Both buildings were purchased for a total of $24.5 million, but both ended up being demolished. In 2018, homes will be built, eventually resulting in homes that neighbors have deemed unwelcome monsters.
The nearly seven-year reconstruction included extensive excavation work, much to the anger of local residents who complained of noise, dust, debris and toxic fumes from the site. Some people fled the neighborhood as a result of this messy project.
Neighbors “wake up every morning to the rattling sounds and vibrations of the jackhammer,” some residents wrote in a 2019 paper. Change.org petition They begged local authorities to stop the project.
“We don’t imagine mansions or swimming pools. Instead, we hear the sound of steady digging graves,” exasperated local residents. “We see graveyards, both figuratively and literally, as various toxic gases enter our homes and bodies. So is death on the streets and in our neighborhoods.”
Currently about 20,000 square feet, the eight-story home, which includes two basement levels and a 55-foot-long indoor lap pool that extends to the garden, was recently listed by Compass agent Jim St. Andre. told the Wall Street Journal.
If the property sells at its current list price, it would be one of the most expensive townhouses ever offered for sale in the Big Apple.
Bastid had planned to make the mansion his primary residence, but told the outlet that “global and personal events” changed his plans.
He acknowledged issues with neighbors were a “major concern” and added that his team was in contact with local block associations.
“Even after the establishment phase, the project team maintains very good relations with the neighbors,” he asserted.
But despite his claims, neighbors continued to voice fierce opposition to the project years after construction began. According to a 2021 article published on the local ilovetheupperwestside.com blog.
Three years after the project began, residents shared their frustrations with paper strips pasted on construction sites.
Photos from the complaint show they claim the noise has been “ongoing for years” and how construction has shaken nearby buildings and blocked roads for emergency workers and ambulances. It shows.
“Billionaire selfishness hurts my brain!” one person wrote. “Two people spent years building it!!!” Selfish, selfish. ”
Carol Xiangxiao Liu, a lawyer who once lived in the area, told the Journal that “it would have been a pretty awkward situation” if the couple had moved, given the harsh reaction from local residents.
St. Andre declined to comment on the couple’s reasons for selling the property, but sources told the outlet that the two had separated.
The current sales record for an urban townhome was set in 2018 when the Wildenstein mansion on the Upper East Side sold for a staggering $90 million. The Wildenstein House once belonged to the art dealer dynasty that included Jocelyn Wildenstein, whose years of plastic surgery famously earned her the nickname “Catwoman.”
