Manhattan townhouses took center stage in December, with several big sales and a prominent listing.
The film producer Scott Rudin teamed up with a neighbor for a combined listing at 20-22 Bank Street in the West Village. His four-story Greek Revival house (with a nearly identical facade on the home next door) was previously owned by Graydon Carter, the longtime editor in chief of Vanity Fair.
In Turtle Bay, the cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder sold the glass Rockefeller Guest House, while the house where the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim had lived has a new owner, two years after his death. And on the Upper West Side, the real estate developer Charles Bendit, and his wife, Karyn Bendit, closed on the sale of their townhouse.
Other noteworthy December closings included the purchase of a co-op through a trust for Sara Lee Schupf, for whom the Sara Lee dessert business was named. Among those selling their co-ops were Cathie Black, a former New York City Schools chancellor, and her husband, Thomas E. Harvey, a lawyer, as well as the novelist Erica Jong. All three transactions were on the Upper East Side.
The month’s biggest sale, also on the Upper East Side, was a six-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bath penthouse at 200 East 83rd Street, at Third Avenue, that closed at roughly $38.3 million. The buyer used the limited liability company 200 E 83 Unit PHC.