For greater than half a century, the artwork collector Hester Diamond known as the imposing, twin-towered Eldorado on the Upper West Side dwelling. It was there, in her sprawling duplex, that she put collectively intensive collections of Modernist and outdated masters works, entertained artwork world dignitaries and raised her household.
“My parents didn’t separate their social lives and work lives — they existed in the same ecosystem in the apartment,” recalled considered one of her sons, Michael Diamond, referred to as Mike D, one of many founders of the Beastie Boys.
Ms. Diamond and her first husband, Harold Diamond, began their collections slowly. “They loved art and going to galleries,” mentioned their oldest son, David Diamond, a advertising and marketing and strategic planning guide. “They bought extensively on the layaway plan — my mom used to joke that they owed $50 a month to every gallery in town.” Eventually they gave up their day jobs — she was a social employee, he a schoolteacher — to pursue careers in artwork, then arrange their very own enterprise.
Growing up at 300 Central Park West, the Diamond brothers turned artwork specialists in their very own proper. “When I was a kid, my friends would say I lived in a museum,” mentioned David Diamond, 63. “But somehow the family felt completely comfortable with it.”
Since Ms. Diamond’s demise two years in the past at age 91, all the artwork and furnishings have been auctioned off, bringing in additional than $26 million, in addition to donated or divided amongst relations. And now the empty duplex is up for sale. The asking worth is $19.5 million, with $22,200 in month-to-month upkeep, in line with the dealer Amy Katcher of the Corcoran Group, who’s itemizing the property with Michael J. Franco of Compass.
The condo sits on the 18th and nineteenth flooring of the south tower. It measures round 6,300 sq. ft and features a whole of round 800 sq. ft of terraces on each ranges, providing beautiful vistas of the Central Park Reservoir and Midtown skyline. “The views, the light and the space are incredible,” Ms. Katcher mentioned.
The Diamonds got here to the Eldorado as renters within the mid-Nineteen Sixties. After the 1929 Art-Deco advanced was transformed right into a co-op in 1982, they purchased the duplex, together with an adjoining condo on the nineteenth ground. (David Diamond believes his mother and father paid round $1.2 million for each models.) In November 1982, with renovations nonetheless ongoing, Mr. Diamond died at age 56. (A 3rd son, Stephen, died in 1999.)
“The renovation was completed in the summer of 1983, and the apartment was fully put back together in the fall,” David Diamond mentioned. “But by then, it was clear that the renovated apartment was really my mom’s apartment. It was, in a real sense, the start of her new life.”
The dwelling area was additional enlarged in 2009, when Ms. Diamond acquired one other adjoining condo, with two bedrooms and two loos, on the 18th ground.
The house is being listed with six bedrooms and 7 and a half loos, although the configurations have shifted quite a few instances through the years. “Pretty much every room in the house changed its function at least once during the 50 years my mom lived there,” Michael Diamond, 56, mentioned.
Ms. Diamond, who additionally labored as an inside designer along with dealing in artwork, favored to shake up the symmetry of the condo as nicely. She was identified within the artwork world for mixing traditional English furnishings and antiques with daring Modernist artwork, then years later switching to vivid, modern furnishings juxtaposed with works of the outdated masters.
Her huge collections of work, sculptures and different memorabilia have been displayed all through the house and included items from Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
“I loved her fearlessness and her vision that she had, to switch so dramatically and radically,” Michael Diamond mentioned. (Both he and his brother say they most well-liked the modern artwork over the outdated masters, largely as a result of it was what they grew up with.)
The predominant entrance to the condo is on the nineteenth ground. A spacious lobby results in a examine and a 29-by-22-foot lounge, every opening to a wraparound terrace. Off the lobby and thru a protracted gallery are a big, eat-in kitchen with stainless-steel cabinetry, a pantry and professional-grade home equipment; a proper eating room with an expanded china closet; and an unlimited major bed room suite, which contains a terrace, a full toilet, powder room and an sizable dressing room.
On the decrease degree, linked by a curved staircase, are the remaining bedrooms, two of which have terrace entry, and loos. More just lately that they had been used as a house workplace, health room, library and music room. There can be a laundry room and workers quarters.
Throughout the condo are many authentic architectural parts, just like the excessive ceilings, herringbone oak flooring, plaster moldings and oversize home windows. Central air-conditioning and dehumidification and lighting techniques have additionally been added.
Michael and David Diamond say they’ve fond reminiscences of rising up within the Eldorado, situated between ninetieth and 91st Streets. The household frequented close by museums and spent numerous hours within the park.
“It really was our backyard,” mentioned Michael Diamond, including that he would usually skateboard there, in addition to play baseball and soccer.
Ms. Diamond particularly loved spending time within the condo’s grand lounge, the brothers mentioned, the place she would usually entertain a variety of visitors in addition to simply sit and chill out.
“When she wasn’t entertaining,” Michael Diamond mentioned, “she was in her corner office,” proudly adorned with Beastie Boys gold data.
She was in all probability his greatest fan, however he admits that she was much less of a fan of his music.
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