Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

• More than a year after listing it for $27.9 million, Tommy Hilfiger has finally found a buyer for his 20,000-square-foot manse in Greenwich. The estate, which is known as Stone Hill, was purchased by the fashion mogul for $18 million in 2005. Now an unidentified buyer is taking it off his hands for $20 million. [WSJ]
• Former Ariba CEO Lawrence Mueller and his wife Mary Kay have gone into contract to sell their condo at 15 Central Park West. The three-bedroom spread, which the couple first listed for $16.5 million in May and reduced to $15.5 million in October, went into contract earlier this week. [Cityfile, PDE]
• Alex Acquavella, the son of top NYC art dealer Bill Acquavella and his heir apparent at the tony UES gallery, has paid $3.9 million for an apartment at 50 Gramercy Park North. The two-bedroom spread features a wood burning fireplace and private terrace, along with views of Gramercy Park. [Cityfile]
• Melvyn Blum, a retired EVP at Vornado Realty Trust, has sold his 28th-floor apartment at the Trump International for $6.4375 million. The buyer is technology executive Sanjiv Ahuja and his wife Anju. [Cityfile]

• Another one of the 15 homes around the world that Nic Cage picked up in recent years has been turned over to a new owner. Cage has closed on the sale of his 48th-floor condo at the Olympic Tower, albeit for quite a bit less than he'd been hoping to get. The 3,550-square-foot apartment, which had been listed for $9.75 million when it went into contract last month, reportedly ended up selling for $7.5 million. [NYP]
• Fortress Investment Group co-founder—and former billionaire—Randal Nardone has dropped the price of his condo at 240 Riverside Boulevard for the second time since he put it on the market for $11.75 million in February. Nardone, who plunked down $22 million for a pad at 101 Warren Street last year, is now asking for $9.2 million for the place. [Cityfile, Corcoran]More

• More than two years after she first put it on the market, Gisele Bundchen has officially disposed of her triplex penthouse at 347 West 11th Street. The 1,700-square-foot apartment, which originally hit the market for $10.9 million and was listed for a much more modest $4.5 million when it went into contract late last month, sold for $4.4 million to a buyer identified in city property records as Lower West Side Manhattan R.E. [Cityfile]
• Steven "Mac" Heller, the former head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, has sold his three-bedroom apartment at 14 East 75th Street. The 7th-floor co-op, which hit the market for $5.425 million in February, sold for $4.725 mil. to real estate investor Fred Schwalbe and his wife, Ruth. [Cityfile]More

• Rod Aldridge, the founder of the leading British outsourcing company Capita Group, has picked up a place in New York. Aldridge, whose company managed London's congestion pricing program and who was forced to resign as Capita's chairman amid a bribery scandal in 2006, paid $13.75 million for a 4,116-square-foot condo at the Superior Ink building on West 12th Street. [Cityfile]
• Doug Von Allmen, the Florida-based venture capitalist and victim of alleged Ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein, has put his duplex apartment at the Time Warner Center on the market for $18.45 million. [NYO, BHS]
• Bank of America portfolio manager Raymond Cubero and his wife, Kathleen Comerford, have changed brokers and dropped the price of their Trump Tower duplex. The four-bedroom "smart house," which the couple listed with Paula Del Nunzio for $14.995 million in June and cut down to $12.995 million earlier this month, is now listed with Corcoran's Carrie Chiang, Loy Carlos and Janet Wang for $95,000 less. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Architect Dean Maltz has paid $3.4179 million for a four-bedroom apartment at the Metal Shutter Houses at 524 West 19th Street. [Curbed]

• Hedge funder Steve Stuart, who left Fortress Investment Group in 2007 to found his own firm, has finally found a buyer for his 35th floor apartment at the Park Laurel on West 63rd Street. The four-bedroom condo, which Stuart bought for $5.4 million in 2004 and put on the market for $10.8 million in October 2008, sold this week to an unidentified buyer for $7.4 million. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Prolific real estate investor Michael Hirtenstein is the mystery buyer who has agreed to purchase financier Armon Bar-Tur's townhouse at 92 Charles Street. Hirtenstein picked up the four-bedroom home, which was most recently listed for $14.95 million, for "about $13.5 million." [NYP]
• Longtime Dakota residents Connie Chung and Maury Povich are preparing to leave New York. The couple has gone into contract to buy a 12,500-square-foot home in Washington, DC for $8.98 million, although Chung says they're not planning on moving into the new home until 2010 or 2011. [WSJ]More

• Washington power lobbyists and Democratic insiders Tony and Heather Podesta have been busy bees since Barack Obama was elected last fall. According to a report earlier this week, the couple's separate lobbying firms have racked up $25 million in fees thus far in 2009. Now they're spending some of their earnings, it seems: The couple has picked up New York pied-à-terre, paying $3.247 million for a sixth-floor apartment at the Sohmer Piano Building at 170 Fifth Avenue. [Cityfile]
• Four months after it was pulled off the market, the Sloane Mansion on 68th Street has a new listing and a new broker. The 104-year-old mansion, which was purchased by bankers Joseph Ingrassia and John Rice III for $20 million in 2007 and was offered for $64 million last year, is now in the hands of Corcoran's Leighton Candler. And it's almost half the price it was a year ago. The new listing has it priced at $39 million. [NYO, Corcoran]
• A one-bedroom co-op at the Sherry-Netherland has gone on the market for $9.5 million with Brown Harris Stevens broker Richard Wallgren. [NYO]

Bernie Madoff's East 64th Street penthouse didn't attract any buyers at $9.9 million. How does a more modest $8.9 million sound? Did we mention the "elliptical staircase" and the "sun-flooded rooms"? Or the "tremendous wrap-around planted and irrigated terrace"? Or the fact that Mr. Matt Lauer will be your downstairs neighbor? Get moving, people. A "sophisticated" and impeccably renovated apartment" at this price won't last long. [Curbed]

• Actress Kristen Johnston has closed on the sale of her duplex at 296 West 10th Street. The two-bedroom apartment with a solarium and terrace, which Johnston listed for $1.795 million in June and went into contract to sell in August, sold for $1.7 million to costume designers John Orberg and Janet Kuhl. [Cityfile]
• Jamie Drake, the interior designer who counts Mayor Bloomberg as one of his clients, has put his 6,200-square-foot home in East Hampton on the market for $2.9 million. [Newsday, Mercedes/Berk]
• Armon Bar-Tur, a managing director at SafeHarbor Capital Partners, and his wife Rebecca, have found a buyer for their townhouse at 92 Charles Street. The four-bedroom home, which the couple bought for $6 million in 2006 and listed for $14.95 million in October, has gone into contract after less than a month on the market. [Curbed, Corcoran]
• Private eye Bo Dietl has gone into contract to sell his Manhasset home. The five-bedroom home, which the former cop and occasional TV commentator bought for $2.3 million in 2004 and listed for $3.295 million in August, is reportedly selling for "just over $3 million." [Newsday, PDE]

• Paolo Pellegrini, the white-hot hedge fund manager who started his own firm last year after working for billionaire John Paulson, has closed on the purchase of a 3,500-square-foot apartment at 88 Central Park West. Pellegrini and his wife Henrietta paid $9 million for the co-op, down from the $10.995 million asking price that owners Ray Errol Fox and Jean Thomas were seeking. The apartment was first listed in May 2008 for $12.995 million. [Cityfile, Stribling]
• Victoria's Secret president Ed Razek has sold his UES pied-à-terre. Razek sold his one-bedroom co-op at 32 East 64th Street for $2.25 million. [Cityfile]
• Deborah Doyle McWhinney, who was appointed as the head of Citi's Personal Wealth Management division this spring, has picked up a new apartment. McWhinney paid $2.88 million for a co-op at 25 East 86th Street. [Cityfile]

DJ AM's LA Home Hits Market | DJ AM's Lafayette Street apartment hasn't gone up for sale yet, but his Beverly Hills house can now be yours for $3.795 million. Real Estalker has the photos and details. [Real Estalker]

• Thomas Renyi, who retired as chairman and CEO of the Bank of New York last year, has picked up an apartment at 920 Fifth Avenue. And he got a good deal, too. Renyi and his wife, Elizabeth, paid $7.55 million for the three-bedroom apartment, which is $2.55 million less than what it was first listed for in April 2008. [Cityfile]
• Software mogul Marty Sprinzen has found a buyer for his 4,552-square-foot apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue. The ninth-floor residence, which Sprinzen bought for $15.8 million in 2007 and put on the market for $24.5 million in May, went into contract to sell late last week. [NYO, BHS]
• The Hampshire House apartment once owned by the late Wall Street titan Zalman Bernstein is back on the market at a hefty discount. The 25th-floor residence, which became the subject of a lawsuit between Bernstein's daughter and the co-op's board in 2007, first went on the market for $17.5 million that same year. Now, after two years and four price chops, the apartment is once again for sale and is now priced at $11.5 million. [Cityfile, BHS]More

• Less than two months after investor and philanthropist Ephraim Gildor put his duplex penthouse at the Park Laurel back on the market for $28 million, it looks like he's already found a buyer. The 7,758-square-foot apartment with seven bedrooms and terrace went into contract late last week. [Cityfile, PDE]
• Hedge fund manager Steve Eisman, who took a loss on the sale of his old apartment at 1125 Park Avenue back in August, has picked up something new. He's closed on a four-bedroom penthouse duplex at 1120 Park Avenue for $7.4 million, which is 36 percent less than the original asking price. [NYT]
• Christopher Nixon Cox, the grandson of Richard Nixon, has sold his two-bedroom apartment at 10 East 70th Street for $1.4 million. [Curbed]
• Renowned sculptor Louise Bourgeois has been identified as the buyer behind the purchase of costume designer William Ivey Long's townhouse on West 20th Street. Bourgeois' Easton Foundation picked up the building for $4.75 million and will reportedly use it as an exhibition space and archive for Bourgeois' collection of books and film. [NYT]

• Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch has closed on the purchase of an apartment on the 46th-floor of One Beacon Court. It's located next door to the apartment he already owns. And the legendary exec—who just got out of the hospital a couple of weeks ago—scored a pretty good deal, too: Welch paid $8.3 million for the apartment, or nearly $1 million less than what it was first listed for back in February. [Cityfile, previously]
• Kimora Lee Simmons has dropped the price of her blingtastic mansion in Saddle River, NJ. The four-acre estate, which first went on the market for $23 million last year, is now listed for just $16.5 million. [NYP, Sotheby's]
• Restaurant mega-publicist and Iron Chef America judge Karine Bakhoum has put her co-op at 205 East 69th Street on the market. The three-bedroom pad with fireplace and chef's kitchen is listed for $2.35 million. [NYP, Halstead]More

• Israeli-born entrepreneur Beny Alagem has closed on the sale of his three-bedroom apartment at 15 Central Park West. The 15th-floor condo, which Alagem and his wife Adele bought for $15.4 million in April 2008 and listed for $24 million last June, ended up selling for $19.9 million. The buyer is Stuart Peterson, the president of Silicon Valley's Artis Capital Management. Peterson, who made a fortune as an early investor in YouTube, set the record for purchasing the most expensive home in Bay area in 2006. [Cityfile]
• Armon Bar-Tur, a managing director at SafeHarbor Capital Partners, and his wife Rebecca, have put their townhouse at 92 Charles Street on the market. The four-bedroom home, which the couple picked up for $6 million in 2006, is now listed for $14.5 million. [Curbed, Corcoran]
• Renowned Broadway costume designer William Ivey Long has sold his Chelsea townhouse. The restored home at 349 West 20th Street, which Ivey bought back in 1994, sold for $4.75 million. [Cityfile]

• The buyer who plunked down $9.41 million on Bernie and Ruth Madoff's oceanfront home in Montauk home has been revealed: It's billionaire real estate mogul Steve Roth and his wife, Broadway producer Daryl Roth. [WSJ]
• Alexander Navab, a partner at KKR and co-head of the firm's private equity business in North America, has paid $4.9 million for a two-bedroom co-op at the River House on East 52nd Street. Meanwhile, his four-bedroom spread just a few floors up remains on the market for $24.5 million. [Cityfile]
• The Minetta Lane townhouse owned by late party planner Robert Isabell has been reduced in price since first going on the market for $3.95 million. The 2,813-square-foot building, which features a "basement hand-chipped by Tibetan-born sherpas from Brooklyn," is now $3.45 million. [Curbed, MK] More