After failing to get a bite on the $55 million asking price of her Upper East Side mansion, pharmaceutical heiress Libet Johnson has decided to rent it out. The asking price? A heavy duty $95,000 a month.
With over 12,100 square feet of interior space and a 135-year pedigree that includes a Vanderbilt (Alice Gwynne, wife of Cornelius), a Lindemman (Sloan, daughter of George) and Beauty.com founder Roger Barnett, the home is worth every penny of the lease rate.
Located a block east of Central Park on 69th Street, the 33-foot-wide Neo-Georgian mansion includes seven bedrooms plus a staff apartment, five fireplaces and a rooftop terrace. After buying the home from Barnett and Lindemann for a reported $48 million, Johnson set to work on renovations, employing retail architect Peter Marino.
Among the exhaustive room list: a gallery, a playroom, a breakfast nook, a sauna, a steam room, a hair studio, a library, a workout room, a wine cellar and a bar-equipped nightclub in the basement designed by lifestyle guru and event-planner-to-the-stars Colin Cowie.
Known for her aversion to the limelight and what snippets of detail reporters have cobbled together about her five marriages and the torrential custody battle she’s waged against ex-boyfriend Lionel Bissoon over their adopted Cambodian son William, Johnson has also developed a reputation for being a capricious real estate buyer. Just a year after buying the five-story mansion, she began shopping it on the hush.
