A Pink Palace on the West Village

When walking by 11^th Street in the West Village, almost reaching to the Hudson river, you can only be amazed and curious as your eyes find a Pink Palace on top of an existing building with a large inscription saying: “Palazzo Chupi”. A few minutes later you find yourself on google trying to find out what is this Chupi all about.

Whatever it means, it’s the name of Julian Schnabel’s new hot-pink high-rise nearing completion at 360 W. 11th St. The Venetian retro-style residential building involved constructing an 11-story addition above an existing three-story former stable. A plain concrete slab that topped the old facade has been incorporated into the project and inscribed with “Palazzo Chupi” — “palazzo” meaning “palace” or “mansion” in Italian, and “chupi” meaning, well…it’s anyone’s guess. Full article at http://www.thevillager.com/villager_226/bonochupiandmysteries.html

The interesting thing about this palace is that its West Village apartments had been for sale.

1) The full-floor unit bought by Brady for $15.5 million in September 2007, making him the first Palazzo Chupi buyer. He’s still holding onto it.
2) The full-floor unit bought for $12 million by Schnabel’s buddy Richard Gere, though he never moved in. Gere tried flipping it for $18 million, but he ended up unloading it for $11 million to an unknown buyer late last year.
3) We’d always operated under the assumption that #3 is Schnabel’s place, but the $12 million duplex is listed as #3.
4) Apparently Schnabel’s duplex, though we think he may have given over an entire floor to his swingin’ son Vito.
5) The triplex penthouse on floors 10-12 mercifully purchased by Brady last year for $10.5 million. Renovations now underway.

 It appears the last lingering unsold West Village apartment in the 12-story, five-unit building—the nearly 4,000-square-foot duplex on the eighth and ninth floors (above) that also once sported a $32 million price tag—sold for $12 million in December.
Read full article at: http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2010/02/08/glory_glory_schnabelujah_palazzo_chupi_now_sold_out.php