The Sumptuous Duplex of a New York Style Icon Lists for $5.5 Million

Carolyne Roehm is officially letting go of her bespoke New York City apartment. The lifestyle author, socialite, and former fashion designer—she worked with Oscar de la Renta before launching her own successful womenswear line, which lasted 10 years—has hoisted her majestic Manhattan duplex on the market for a stitch under $5.5 million. Charles Holmes and Evita LaSasso of Coldwell Banker Warburg share the listing.

Online reports show she acquired the seven-room spread from magazine publisher Marion Gilliam for $4.7 million back in 2004, some 10 years after she split from her second husband, Henry R. Kravis, a financier known for his $25 billion buyout of Nabisco in the late 1980s.

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Roehm initially refused to even consider buying a place at the 21-story, pre-war Neoclassical 322 East 57th Street building, which was originally designed as a studio hotel by architect Harry M. Clawson in 1929 and is sometimes referred to as the Mr. Chow building, after the venerable Chinese restaurant that anchors the ground floor. She had previously looked at Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford’s apartment there and decided it had relatively modest rooms, aside from the grand salons, per The New York Times.

An acquaintance then insisted she just had to see this particular apartment because it resembled Weatherstone, her 18th-century stone house in the Connecticut town of Sharon. “When I first walked into this apartment, it was as if I had a twin brother and he’d lived here,” she said. “There were my pilasters! There was the coffered ceiling just like I have at Weatherstone.”

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Situated on the 12th and 13th floors of the building, the palatial pad has three bedrooms and three baths across roughly 3,100 square feet outfitted with an ample allowance of gilded furnishings and decor. A semi-private elevator landing opens into a lower-level entrance gallery bathed in limestone, with a hallway flowing to a square-shaped, 27-foot-by-27-foot great room boasting an 18-foot coffered ceiling, brown walls dotted with striped white pilasters, a marble fireplace, built-in bookshelves, and two 12-foot casement windows offering city skyline views.

An oval dining room with a curved pocketing door has rich fabric panels and recessed dome lighting, and a windowed kitchen sports stainless appliances and a concealed butler’s pantry. Both a grand staircase and a private elevator head upstairs, where a handsome oak-paneled study is warmed by a fireplace. A posh southern-exposure primary hosts a large bath equipped with a soaking tub and a steam shower, while two additional en suite guest bedrooms include one that’s been converted into a dressing area.

Rounding it all off: a hefty $10,399 monthly maintenance fee, which avails the new owner with a round-the-clock doorman, storage space, and, of course, primo access to Mr. Chow.

Click here for more photos of the Upper East Side residence.