Pete Peterson

Fiscally conservative, octogenarian leveraged-buyout billionaires who served in Nixon’s cabinet can be incredibly generous to their buddies.

Pete Peterson, the co-founder and senior chairman of the Blackstone Group, and the chairman emeritus of the massively powerful Council on Foreign Relations, has bought that organization’s apartment at the huge Imperial House co-op on East 69th Street. According to city records, he paid the council $3,040,000.

Why would Mr. Peterson, who bought David Geffen’s $37.5 million duplex on Fifth Avenue last year, pick up a petite co-op? “Let me give you the background,” Mr. Peterson said after returning The Observer’s phone call, much to The Observer’s surprise.  read more »

College dropout David Geffen already has $4.6 billion (plus a song penned for him by Joni Mitchell). And, according to deeds filed today, he now has $37.5 million from alliterative Blackstone Group co-founder Pete Peterson.

The deal represents the second-biggest co-op sale in New York City history, behind only Rupert Murdoch's $44 million buy at 834 Fifth.

In exchange, Mr. Peterson has the 12-room duplex penthouse at 810 Fifth Avenue, which fickle Mr. Geffen bought just last year for $31.5 million. Most recently, in an article last week in the NY Sun, Mr. Geffen was said to be selling for only $34 million. Such chump change!

Despite his steep price, this buyer belongs in the building. As New York magazine pointed out when the deal was first rumored, the co-op building used to house Richard Nixon, the Blackstone man’s boss when he was the Secretary of Commerce.

Fittingly, Governor Nelson Rockefeller was once in the penthouse: Nelson’s little brother David preceded Mr. Peterson as a chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations; and older brother John III was a pal of the Blackstone boy’s too.