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

Valery and Olga Kogan are back in business! Sort of! As you may recall, last year the Russian tycoon and his wife planned to build the craziest mansion Greenwich had ever seen, one equipped with 15 bathrooms, Finnish and Turkish baths, on-site hair salon, and electric guitar-shaped outdoor patio surrounded by "guitar god" statues. 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]

The Crusade Against Smoking Moves Back Indoors | Now that the city is planning to move forward with a ban on smoking in public parks, a new battleground has opened up in the war on tobacco. Several NYC landlords are now planning to ban smoking in their buildings and are informing tenants that if they smoke inside their apartments, they may be subject to eviction. If you happen to live in one of those buildings and you're a smoker, perhaps you could try and work out an exemption by pretending you have chronic back pain? Hey, you never know. [NYT]

• 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

Sharon Baum Returns to Her Rolls | Another possible sign that New York's real estate market is on the rebound: Mega-broker Sharon Baum, who told the Times earlier this year that she was giving up the hunter green Rolls-Royce she used to ferry clients around town because it made her "deeply uncomfortable" amid the downturn, is reversing course. The Corcoran agent—and one-time girlfriend of Mike Bloomberg!—tells the Observer she's using the Rolls once again, although she did decide to get rid of her Vespa recently, for what's it worth. [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]

Here's an important lesson to keep in mind: If the corrupt president of an impoverished African nation comes along and tells you he's going to pay you $27 million to buy a piece of land you own in Midtown, do not take him at his word. Stay skeptical, at least until you have the money in hand. Dictators, you see, tend to operate by their own set of rules; just they signed a silly piece of paper called a "contract" doesn't mean they can't change their minds later on. They can do what they want. That's one of the perks to being an autocrat!More

• 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]

New Neighborhood Names That Will Never Catch On | The Daily News has a roundup of new neighborhood names that real estate brokers have been pushing in an effort to make the areas seem more hip, such as BoHo (Bowery below Houston Street), BoCoCa (the border of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens), and GoCaGa (Gowanus and Carroll Gardens). None of them have caught on yet and probably never will so if you use them in conversation, you'll probably come off sounding pretty stupid (and may get mistaken for a desperate real estate broker). But feel free to take your chances. [NYDN]

• 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]

• 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]