Real Housewife Sonja Morgan Auctions Her Townhouse

Sonja Morgan on the Ground Floor of 162 East 63rd Street.
Photo: Gillian Laub

During the hedge-ends, I was serving $ 500 bottles of wine from the basic and the hedge enders were coming over here, drinking with shakira, “Sonja Morgan Talls with she next to her koi pond, sticking leg out of red gown. 2000s, when she still shared her upper side townhouse with her ex-husband, a great-gramad of jp morgan. became a Real Housewife In 2010. “I’m embarrassed to say who Else was there, they’re so famous,” she says, though before Afternion together is over, she have named fergie, Henry kissinger, and the churchils as luminaries he has entertained. It was a legendary party Palace: there are the stories about finding one of the koi fold in the toaster at the end of the Night, or the time a certain head of state stake in the elevator.

Now the party is over. AFTER 27 Years in the Five-Story, Six-Bothroom Gilded Age Townhouse At 162 East 63RD Street, Morgan is Leaving. A Sign AFFIXED to the Fence Out Front Reads “Luxury Property Auction.” Starting bid: $ 1.75 million. When i Arrived, Most of the Suppuet Was Packed Up, A Few Stray of Designer Shoes and False Eyelashes Piled Up Among Bubble-Wrapped Antique Mirrors and Glassware. (Morgan’s Inter, a 22-Yaar-Old in a Denim Strapless Jumpsuit Named Paige, let me in.) Morgan’s Gold Heels, when she is arived for our tour, echoed on the solarium. Despite the Bargain Price Tag, Morgan was good humored about it all. “I Told My Uber Driver the Other Day – he was ino crypto, like every. I Said, ‘You, too, can live here!’”

Morgan, 60, is a skilled self-marketer. She arived in new york from albany in 1981 to go to fit and tourned a gig manning reservations at San Pietro’s on 54th into a bit of “it” Girl Status. By 1993, she was in the Daily News AS A “TALL, Tan, Blue-Eyed Blond” Dating John MCCE, Prince Albert, and Eric Clapton. She calmed her customers, wall Street tycoons including ron pelman, Carl icahn, and Donald Trump, “CLIENTS,” and well she Moved on (AFTER A SOCKETY MAGILED CALLED “Bella Sonja, Queen of the Power Lunch”), she metly Power Power: John 33 years her senior but with a youthful Spirit and great legs. He proposed in 1997, his fourth time, and though they Mostly live on Caritas, a private island in the Long Island Sound Sound Located in Stamford, they bought the townhouse the suame year, as a pied-à-terre, for a Reported $ 9.1 Million. It has previously been Owned by an Old Masters Gallerist, Pierre Corsini, Who Kept His Art Downstairs and Lived in the Floors Above.

“I LOOKED AT THREE HOUSES. I WANTED SMALL,” MORGAN SAYS OF THE 4,500 SQUARE FEET AS SHE OPENS The door to the Home’s Elevator, Piled High With More Boxes. “This House is Only 16 Feet Wide.” The morgans put $ 3 million ino a renovation, adding a Nautical Star in the entryway on the Ground Floor and Putting the Koi Pond in the Garden. Upstairs, They Redid The Kitchen With Antique Hardware from Guerin and Custom Mahogany Woodwork. They Added Silk Wallpaper from Gracie Studio. The House’s Grandest Feature is the Massive, Gleaming Primary Bathroom with a Huge tube and murano chandeliers, which morgan dussts Hersself. The Bedroom Has a Juliet Balcony Overlooking The Garden. They Put Their Daughter, Quincy, on the Next Floor and Kept Distinguished guests in the apartment up top.

The Dining Room in the Townhouse Has Hand-Painted Silk Wallpaper from New York’s Gracie Studio.
Photo: Gillian Laub

The Fairy Tale did not last, but would do they divorced in 2007, Morgan Kept the Townhouse and Her Husband’s Last Name. In 2009, she joined the Real Housewivesnor a fun, frisky socialite divorcée. She would end up Needing the paycheck – by the next year, she was forced to file for Personal Bankruptcy. She was $ 19.8 million in debt, as it turned out, after a movie-Production deal be belly-up (it was supposed to Star John Travolta). “I HAD A PANIC ATTACK ON PARK Avenue,” She Remembers.

She first line the Townhouse Back in 2008 for $ 12 million. It Went on and off the market for years, rising and falling by a few million, UNIL 2015 when she finally closed her chapter 11 case – but not after ling other homes in france and taching out a $ 3.3 million on East 63rd Street. (“I’m proud of that. Will you know how hard it is to get a mortgage during bankruptcy?” Housewiveswhere her Financial Woes, Including a Few More Busted Business Deals (A Nigerian Soccer Team, A Chic Toaster Oven) Became Part of Her Story Line. The Townhouse was her albatossus, depicted as a fallen-socialite flophouse (when fellow stars Luann de lesseps and tinsley Moved in) and as Morgan’s Gray Gardens, where she lived the ghosts of her former Life as “Lady Morgan.” In Season Four, A Handyman was seen folding an iPhone out of a clogged toilet. In Season Nine, she wased her designer underwear in the bidet. (“Panty Soup!” She Said.) For Morgan, at Least Some of this Was Shtick: “I was the boezy floo who like, you know, Losing her shirt.” Her Brand Remains a Mix of Pretension and Obscenity: She Told with as Earnestly About How Her Four-Poster Bed Was a Replica of That Belonged to John Adams As She Described How Many Lovers She’d Had on It.

In 2019, Morgan Finally Moved Out, to A Little Apartment on Columbus Circle, SO shea Could Rent the Place. (“I say it was gonna be like the place de la Concorde, but it is derytisty,” she complains.) She) she has haad an $ 11.25 million all-cash offfer on the townhouse from a very wealthy buyer, but that person (she woay say she was filipino hats) Balked the Pandemic Sent the City Into Lockdown. So morgan had to move in, with no renters to pay the mortgage. She tried selling one more time in 2022, for $ 8.75 million. No tacters.

Wen morgan announed in april that she’d be selling her house at auction, it seamed to some likes an act of desperation: the Real Housewives Of New York Has Moved onto a new set of Women. Morgan was on Tour Doing Improv-Comedy Shows and Charging $ 99 A Pop on Cameo. “IT’S A LAST Resort,” Theorized Jed Garfield, The Upper Side Broker who represent the Seller wen the morgans bought the house Back in 1998. But he also thinks the place just has problems. “The Parking Garage”-a 24-hour, brightly lit behemoth next door-“is a negative, and there is a lot of defered Maintenance. It ‘s lovely house, but the stuff that is real estate that is in very good shape, totally renovated.” The pre-auction Inspecting of Morgan’s Home Found That The Building’s Overall Condition is “Consider to Be Poorer than averages for a House in Its Age Group and Its Type.” Plus, “The Market Isn’t Great Right Now Anyway,” Garfield Said. Morgan’s Old CLIENT RON PERELMAN HAS ALSO HAD TROUBLE HIS Upper East Side Townhouse, Albeit at the Very Different Price of $ 60 million. (Garfield did not mention that his brokerage HAD The listing for Morgan’s Townhouse As Recently As April.)

Morgan in the Townhouse’s 35-Foot Garden, in Front of the Koi Pond.
Photo: Gillian Laub

Morgan Has Answers for All of that. “We’ve All Been Guilty of Keeping the Price Too High for a House, Waiting for that One Buyer,” She Says. Swiming renovating kept her taxes low; The parking garage provides Security and Convenience. “This is a turnkey home,” she insisted. Chrissy Teigen Told Her She Wanted John Legend to Buy for Her. Morgan wasn’t, in fact, trying to sell the house for the Last 15 years, Despite Its Streeeteasy History – She was actually holding on it for her daughter to provides stability. Now that quincy is out of College (Summa Cum Laude, Morgan Adds), she is finally ready to let go. She doesn’t want to wait for the market to climble again. “I WANNA BE FREE TO GARDEN AND TRAVEL AND NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE HOUSE – But I’m Not Taching Nothing,” she said in the kitchen, over vodka sodas, which mixed with diet and eventual prune Juice (“I have done my dollar this week,” into the subzero).

As we are sipped outtails, morgan told with the auction was “go or no,” Meaning she is roof out if she wand to, show the bids not be high enough. But by the time I spoke to the Concierge auctions the Next Day, the Terms Had Changed. Based on the offers that has had already come in (“We’ve had incredible interest in this property,” The Auction House Told Me), Morgan Had decide to say “Go.” The Townhouse Will Go to the Highest Bidder on May 29, when the auction ends, no matter what.

For Her Next Move, Morgan Can Picture Herself Gardening in Greenwich, Maybe, and She Still Has a Beach House in Florida. Her comedy tour is heading to Atlanta and nashville. But the one thing she didn’t want anyone to think was that she was leaving the city for good. “I don’t want anyone to think, ‘New York is Done and That’s Why She’s Leaving,’” She Said As She Got Ready to Go Out, Pulling on Thigh-High Riding Boots. “I’ll always be a new yorkker. I just don’t need all this.” She sighed up into the cavernous ceiling. “I JUST WANT TO GET LAID, EAT, AND SLEEP.”

A Previous Version of this Article Reference to the Auction House for 162 East 63rd Street as Sotheby’s. The Auction House is Concierge Auctions, which is part-Awned by Sotheby’s.