Rupert Murdoch just slashed the price of his Manhattan penthouse by half. See inside the $28.5 million apartment he can't seem to sell.
Maria Noyen
- Rupert Murdoch has cut the price of his three-floor New York City apartment to $28.5 million.
- The media mogul, 93, listed the property for $62 million in 2022.
Rupert Murdoch, the 93-year-old billionaire media mogul, has spent years trying to find a buyer for his nearly 7,000-square-foot penthouse in New York City, steps away from the Flatiron building and Madison Square Park.
Now, in his latest bid to shift the property, he's selling it for $28.5 million, more than half its original listing price.
The former chair of the Fox Corporation and News Corp., who married his fifth wife, Elena Zhukova, earlier this month at his private vineyard in Bel-Air, California, briefly listed the three-floor apartment for $72 million in 2015. But in 2022, he apparently listed it in earnest, asking for $62 million.
In the months since, the listing price has steadily dropped. After briefly being taken off the market in December 2023, the mega-apartment was re-listed in April for $38.5 million, nearly half its original price tag. Two months later, it's been slashed a further $10 million.
The apparently unsellable apartment may very well be a thorn in Murdoch's newlywed bliss — although, not a huge thorn perhaps, given Forbes' estimates the Murdochs have a net worth of $19.7 billion.
Here's a sneak peek at the $28.5 million penthouse apartment he just can't seem to sell.
Rupert Murdoch bought the five-bedroom, six-bathroom penthouse before it was even finished.
After calling it quits with his third wife, Wendi Deng, in 2013, Murdoch was on the lookout for a new bachelor pad.
In their divorce settlement, Deng, who was married to Murdoch for 14 years, kept the Fifth Avenue triplex the couple bought for $44 million in 2005, New York Magazine reported.
Murdoch decided to purchase two apartments at One Madison Square, a luxury condominium at the start of Madison Avenue, built in 2011. He purchased the building's three-floor penthouse and a slightly smaller unit on 57th floor in 2014.
According to Curbed, Murdoch initially lived in the smaller apartment — if you can call 3,300 square feet small — as the penthouse wasn't completed at the time of the sale.
The penthouse sprawls across three floors, connected by a winding staircase.
The apartment was constructed by architect Jose Ramirez, who specializes in luxury interior design, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Per the listing, the first level has a somewhat open-plan layout, comprised of a double-height "Great Room" connected to a 586-square-foot terrace overlooking Manhattan, a dining room, kitchen, library, and bathroom.
A spiral staircase and elevator connect the first floor to the second, which houses two bedrooms with en suites and staff quarters.
Another staircase and elevator go up to the third floor, which has two more bedrooms with en suites and an expansive primary suite.
Shortly after purchasing it, Murdoch seemingly had second thoughts and briefly listed the penthouse for $72 million.
Less than a year after buying the penthouse pre-completion, Murdoch briefly put it back on the market for a whopping $72 million, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2015.
Around the same time, Murdoch bought a $25 million townhouse in the West Village.
Murdoch changed his mind again five months later, taking the penthouse off the market and, instead, putting the townhouse back on, Curbed reported.
Murdoch might be calling it quits with his penthouse, but he isn't over NYC yet.
Murdoch indicated he was ready to sell the penthouse when he relisted it in 2022, leading some publications, like Curbed, to question if the Australian nonagenarian was done with the Big Apple, where he's had a base since the 1970s when he bought The New York Post.
If Murdoch had been looking to move out of NYC, he would've had plenty of secondary homes to fall back on.
As Architectural Digest reports, the Murdoch family has a "staggering" real-estate portfolio, which includes an Australian ranch, a $28.8 million California vineyard, and an apartment in the affluent Mayfair neighborhood in London.
However, suspicions Murdoch was truly calling it quits with NYC were quashed last year when The New York Times reported he bought a seven-bedroom apartment on the 27th floor of a historic building overlooking Central Park for $35.2 million.
He's also far from the only ultra-rich homeowner struggling to sell their pricey digs.
Unless he finds a buyer prepared to shell out $28.5 million for the penthouse or is willing to give it yet another price cut, Murdoch is stuck with it.
But he's not the only one who can't seem to sell a lavish property at the moment. As BI's real estate reporter Alcynna Lloyd previously reported, a number of celebrities and ultra-wealthy homeowners—particularly those with property in NYC — are finding themselves in similar positions to Murdoch.
Kenny Lee, a senior economist at StreetEasy, told Lloyd that a slowdown in demand is at the crux of the current real-estate slump. It's even led some wealthy homeowners to auction off or rent their pricey digs, options Murdoch may have to consider if he truly wants the penthouse off his hands as soon as possible.
Popular Right Now
Popular Keywords
Advertisement