Where's the Fizz? Bronfman Selling 1040 Fifth Co-op for Below Asking

The colossal Manhattan real estate story of Edgar Bronfman Jr., Seagram liquor grandson and Warner Music Group CEO, has finally taken a comparatively imperfect turn. Eight months after he sold his East 64th Street townhouse to a Russian oil billionaire for $50 million, even though he paid $4,375,000 for the property in 1994, his 11-room apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue has gone to contract for somewhere between $20 and $21 million, a source said, well below the original $24 million asking price.

Meanwhile, the duplex penthouse he bought at the Carhart Mansion on East 95th Street last October for around $19 million, and put on the market in April for $24.5 million, is still unsold.

But don’t pity Mr. Bronfman: For one thing, he’ll probably make a profit on that Carhart penthouse. And consider that he bought the 1040 Fifth co-op for only $19.5 million this January; a profit of a few hundred thousand dollars over a few months isn’t exactly terrible. Still, it wasn’t an investment like that $50 million house, which Mr. Bronfman sold for 11.4 times what he paid during the ’90s.

Broker Alina Pedroso, who listed the apartment at 1040 Fifth back in January, one week after Mr. Bronfman bought it, had no comment, and the music executive declined an interview request.

He’ll be leaving behind a 27.5-foot-long living room (with a wood-burning fireplace), which connects to a gallery and a library (with another fireplace) and a dining room, which has a small door to the pantry, which connects to the kitchen, which connects to a maid’s room and then a hefty servant’s hall. Two of the co-op’s five bedrooms have their own walk-in closets; all have their own bathrooms.

On the downside, Mr. Bronfman’s buyers, described by the source only as “really nice people,” will have to pay an $8,614 monthly maintenance fee if they pass the co-op board and finish the deal.

mabelson@observer.com