Christian Candy Gets 31% Discount on $26 Million Plaza Penthouse Purchase

Christian Candy, the U.K. property developer whose company helped build London’s One Hyde Park complex, bought a penthouse apartment at Manhattan’s Plaza hotel at a 31 percent discount from what its owners initially sought.

Candy acquired a 6,500-square-foot (604-square-meter) triplex, known as Penthouse 2009, for $25.9 million, according to property records made public today at the New York City Department of Finance. The apartment was sold by New York-based developer El-Ad Properties, according to a statement yesterday from Candy & Candy, the interior-design company owned by Christian and his brother, Nick.

Candy’s apartment, which overlooks Central Park, was first listed for sale in April for $37.5 million, according to StreetEasy, a Manhattan real estate listings website. In October, the seller reduced the price by 11 percent to $33.5 million.

Purchases of Manhattan luxury apartments, defined as the top 10 percent of all sales by price, declined 13 percent in the fourth quarter to 201 deals, according to a Jan. 4 report by New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The median price of those deals dropped 4.6 percent to $4.15 million.

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom triplex is part of a once- larger apartment that was under contract for $45 million in 2006. The would-be buyer, Russian financier Andrei Vavilov, walked away from the deal, forfeiting his deposit in exchange for a smaller unit in the building.

One Hyde Park, in London’s Knightsbridge neighborhood, was developed by a venture between Christian Candy’s CPC Group and Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jasim Bin Jaber al Thani’s closely held Waterknights. Candy conceived the 86-apartment complex with his brother.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Taub at dtaub@bloomberg.net