March 21, 2002 -- AFTER spending millions of dollars in renovations, socialite Lily Safra is selling her Fifth Avenue apartment before she's had a chance to fill her closets**. The widow of billionaire banker Edmond Safra is listing her large 4th floor co-op at 820 Fifth Ave for $30 million - but you've still got to do the decorating. Safra bought the 6,500-square-foot, six-bedroom residence in the spring of 2000 from fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger for $18 million - according to reports - and has spent a year-and-a-half on floor-to-ceiling renovations.
"It's a waiting canvas," says co-broker Sharon Baum, Senior Vice President of the Corcoran Group. "All of the heavy lifting has been done. It's all state-of-the art. Now it's ready for a top designer to come in and make it one of the most incredible homes in Manhattan."
The full-floor apartments at the tony 12-story co-op building had original configurations of 18 rooms when it was constructed in 1916. Baum points out that Safra's lair has been laid out the way someone would want it today. "People don't have eight or nine on staff anymore," she says.
Safra's late husband, Edmond - one of the world's richest men - died of asphyxiation in a suspicious early morning fire* in December, 1999 at his sprawling Monte Carlo penthouse.
Bummer.
These *are* some tough times, y'know.
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I'd bet Ted Maher only gets one guy bringing him his food tray everyday, too.
-BTTT-