Debt-saddled France to sell $48 million Park Avenue apartment

By AFP - Published Friday, April 11, 2014


The French government is bidding adieu to a rich piece of New York City real estate. Corner house with 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms and 38 windows is on the 12th and 13th floors of 740 Park Avenue in NY

The 18-room duplex of France's Ambassador to the United Nations, currently Gérard Araud, in the building at 740 Park Avenue (C, on corner) in New York City, has been put on the market. (AFP)

The French ambassador to the United Nations lives in a sumptuous, 18-room apartment at one of New York's most exclusive addresses - but not for much longer.

Belts are tightening, and the French government has put the stunning Park Avenue duplex on the market for a whopping $48 million, hoping to reap a profit from New York's property boom.


(AFP)

The decision to sell up was announced last year by the Quai d'Orsay - France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs - looking to save taxpayers millions of dollars by selling properties deemed too opulent or dispensable.

The corner apartment with six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and 38 windows is on the 12th and 13th floors of 740 Park Avenue, said to house more billionaires than any other property in America.

It has been advertised on at least two websites which specialize in luxury apartments and has already aroused huge interest among the super rich of Manhattan.

The 19-story building of 31 apartments is so famous it was the subject of a 2005 book "740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building."

A 2012 documentary "Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream" also sought to expose the gap between rich and poor along the famous thoroughfare, which runs from Manhattan to the Bronx.

Among its famous residents are billionaire industrialist David Koch, owner of the New York Jets, Woody Johnson, and fashion designer Vera Wang, who inherited a duplex from her father.

The building was built in 1929 by the grandfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who grew up there.

The French government said last June that putting the apartment on the market was part of a six-year plan to sell off 152 properties for 307 million euros.

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