Hester Diamond is selling her Eldorado Duplex for $19.5 million.
There used to be a large apartment on Central Park West where Ms. Diamond lived with her family and a huge collection of Modernist and old master art.
For more than 50 years, the art collector Hester Diamond lived in the huge, two-towered Eldorado on the Upper West Side. When she lived there, she put together a huge collection of Modernist and old masters art, hosted art world leaders and raised her family. This is where she did all of this.
"My parents didn't separate their social lives and work lives," said one of her sons, Michael Diamond, better known as Mike D, one of the founders of the Beastie Boys. They lived together in the same apartment.
It took Mrs. Diamond and her first husband a long time to build their collections. Their oldest son, David Diamond, is a marketing and strategic planning consultant. "They were very into art and going to galleries," he told me. To make fun of them, my mom used to say they owed $50 a month to every gallery in town. She was a social worker, and he was a teacher at a school. One day, they decided to give up their jobs and start their own business.
The Diamond brothers grew up at 300 Central Park West, where they learned a lot about art and were good at it. David Diamond, 63, said that when he was a child, his friends thought he lived in a museum. But somehow, the whole family was fine with it.
Since Ms. Diamond died two years ago at the age of 91, all of the art and furniture have been sold, making more than $26 million, as well as being donated or split among her family members. And now, the empty duplex is for sale, so you can buy it. An agent for Amy Katcher of the Corcoran Group says the asking price for this home is $19.5 million with $22,200 in monthly maintenance, which is what she and Michael Franco of Compass are selling it for. This is what they say:
It's on the 18th and 19th floors of the south tower. It's about 6,300 square feet and has about 800 square feet of terraces on both levels, giving you great views of the Central Park Reservoir and the Midtown skyline. Asked by Mrs. Katcher what she thought of the views and light, she said: "They're amazing."
There were renters living at the Eldorado from the mid-1960s. It was in 1982 that they bought the duplex and an adjoining apartment on the 19th floor. The 1929 Art-Deco complex was turned into a co-op in that year. David Diamond thinks that his parents paid about $1.2 million for both units, which is what they bought. As work was still being done on his home, Mr. Diamond died in November 1982, at the age of 56, It was 1999 when Stephen died.
It was done in the summer of 1983, and the apartment was put back together in the fall, David Diamond said. But by then, it was clear that the apartment that had been renovated was really my mom's apartment. Her new life began there.
In 2009, Ms. Diamond bought another apartment next to hers, which had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, on the 18th floor. This made the living space even bigger.
There are six bedrooms and seven and a half bathrooms in the home that is for sale, but the layout has changed many times over the years. Michael Diamond, 56, said that "pretty much every room in the house changed its function at least once during the 50 years my mom lived there." This is what he meant.
Also, Ms. Diamond, who worked as an interior designer as well as a dealer of art, liked to change the symmetry of the apartment too. She was known in the art world for mixing old English furniture and antiques with bold Modernist art. Years later, she switched to bright, modern furniture with works by the old masters.
Her huge collection of paintings, sculptures, and other memorabilia were all over her house. They came from artists like Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, and Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
He said he "loved" her courage and how she was able to change so quickly and change her mind. Both he and his brother say that they like modern art more than old masters, mostly because that's what they grew up with.
To get in, you have to go up stairs to the 19th floor. Across the foyer, there is a study and a 29-by-22-foot living room, both of which open to a wrap-around terrace. It's through a long gallery that you get to the formal dining room and the huge master bedroom, which both have terraces and full bathrooms. There is also a huge powder room, and there is a lot of space in the dressing room for clothes.
On the lower level, connected by a curved staircase, are the rest of the bedrooms, two of which have access to the terrace, and the bathroom. For a long time, they had been used as a home office and gym. They also used to be used as a library and music room. There is also a laundry room and a place for staff to live.
The high ceilings, herringbone oak floors, plaster moldings, and large windows are all original to the apartment. A lot of new things have been added, like central air conditioning, dehumidification, and lighting systems.
People who grew up in the Eldorado, which is between 90th and 91st Streets, say they have good memories of living there when they were young. The family went to a lot of nearby museums and spent a lot of time in the park.
"It was really our back yard," said Michael Diamond. He said he skateboarded there, as well as played baseball and soccer, and that he often played there.
In the apartment's grand living room, Ms. Diamond liked to spend a lot of time, the brothers said. There, she would often host a wide range of people as well as just relax.
"When she wasn't entertaining, Michael Diamond said, "she was in her corner office, proudly wearing her Beastie Boys gold records around her neck."
It's possible that she was his biggest fan, but he says that she didn't like his music as much as he did.