John Gutfreund’s Decor, Once a Symbol of Excess, Could Fetch $7 Million
Assembled at an estimated cost of $20 million, the lavish contents of his New York duplex will head to auction in January.
The “winter garden” in the Gutfreunds’ Fifth Avenue apartment.
Source: Christie's
Four years after former Salomon Brothers chairman John Gutfreund died at the age of 86, and one year after his widow Susan Gutfreund sold their 12,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue apartment for $53 million to billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, the bulk of their New York possessions are going to auction at Christie’s.
“From a timing point of view, John did die several years ago, and the process of selling an apartment on this scale is not an immediate one,” says William Strafford, a senior international specialist of European furniture and decorative arts at Christie’s. “Obviously, for Susan, without her husband, it was a pretty large apartment to be living in on her own.” (The apartment’s original asking price was $120 million.)