“Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran, 76, first got a glimpse of her dream home in 1992.
She was running Corcoran Realty at the time and was delivering letters for a messenger service as a side job to help pay her bills. One of her tasks was delivering an envelope to an apartment on the top floor of a building on Fifth Avenue and 97th Street.
When Corcoran entered the apartment, she was impressed by its terrace with views of Central Park. She gave the home’s owner her envelope and told her to call if she ever thought about selling the unit.
“I walked in and saw this green, lush terrace through the French doors, and said to the lady who let me in, ‘If you’re ever going to sell this, would you sell it to me?'” Corcoran told The New York Times in a previous interview.
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More than two decades later, she got a phone call: The home’s owner was ready to sell. Corcoran bought the 4,600-square-foot two-story penthouse apartment for $10 million in 2015 and renovated it for an additional $2 million over the next 18 months.
Now she’s saying goodbye, she says, because of the apartment’s curved staircase—she and her husband, Bill Higgins, 80, a former FBI agent, are finding the steps difficult to navigate. The pair found a new apartment, a single-story penthouse in the same neighborhood of Carnegie Hill, to call home.
Corcoran told The New York Times on Tuesday that she has listed her penthouse for sale for $12 million, slightly lower than what she spent buying and renovating it, but a “fair price” in her estimation. Monthly maintenance fees cost around $11,000.
The apartment has five bedrooms, five full baths, and two half baths. Corcoran completely revamped the space to include features like a library with a wood-burning fireplace, a butler’s pantry, and a full kitchen off the terrace.
“The apartment is laid out like a multilevel jewel box,” Corcoran broker Scott Stewart, who is co-listing the apartment, told The Times.
Corcoran has previously been enthusiastic about her love of the duplex apartment. In a 2022 interview with TikTok star Caleb Simpson, Corcoran said she sat in the apartment’s kitchen every day and thought to herself, “How lucky am I?”
“Never ever did I think I would have such a pretty kitchen,” Corcoran told Simpson.
@calebwsimpson @barbara.corcoran ♬ Sunroof – Nicky Youre & dazy
Corcoran has recently lost a home due to fires. She revealed in January that fires in LA had destroyed her $800,000 mobile home in Tahitian Terrace Mobile Home Park.
Corcoran previously disclosed that she makes about $4.5 million a year from her investments, including profits she has made as a “Shark Tank” investor for 16 years. The millionaire sold her real estate company, The Corcoran Group, for $66 million in 2001 and has since closed 650 deals on “Shark Tank.”
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