The Upper East Side apartment that journalist Barbara Walters called home for 30 years hit the market today for $19.75 million. The late broadcasting legend lived there until her death last December. Located in tony co-op building 944 Fifth Avenue, the residence sits on the eastern edge of Central Park. Designed by architect Nathan Korn, the Italian Renaissance palazzo-style building was constructed in 1925 and stands at 14 stories. Alexa Lambert at Compass has the listing.
Occupying the building’s entire sixth floor, the 11-room abode remains mostly untouched since Walters’s passing. One can only imagine the trove of antiques, art, and memorabilia inside; according to a 1975 AD apartment tour, Walters was a known collector. Interior decorator Burt Wayne designed the space featured in AD’s tour, which was filled with a variety of Victoriana passed down from her mother. “He never makes me feel as if I have to throw anything away,” the award-winning journalist said of Wayne.
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Recent images reflect a perfectly-kept capsule of Walters’s penchant for classical decor, peppered with more modern pieces. Traditional drapes hang over the windows in a study-like room with an antique-looking desk nearby. A red-lacquered dressing room with a wide bookshelf contains a red-leathered Eames chair (perhaps the same chair mentioned by Wayne in the 1975 interview?) amongst other furniture, sitting on a black-and-white animal skin carpet.
And just as in her 1975 apartment where “flowers climb across the walls, the cushions and a chaise,” so too do they occupy the Emmy-winner’s final living room and primary bedroom.
It’s hard to imagine the unit staying up for grabs long, but New York City co-ops have been languishing on the market in recent months due to the abundant supply of newer condo units and the notoriously difficult process of getting board approvals for buyers. Lambert feels we’ve turned a corner now; she told the Wall Street Journal “There are buyers out there for co-ops … There weren’t for a little while, and now there are again.”
