RIP Joan Rivers…And Her Property Portfolio

YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: Groundbreaking and celebrity ball busting comedienne Joan Rivers died today at the ripe old and painstakingly propped up age of 81 but, children, that woman gave this property gossip life from the moment we first heard her pee your pants funny and hysterically self-deprecating 1983 comedy album “What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most.” Believe it when we tell you we played that cassette tape until it plum wore out.

While we can’t and won’t attempt to skewer or out-funny the undisputed high priestess of insult comedy, the least we thought we could do on the afternoon of Miz Rivers’ passing is have a look back her small but impressive property portfolio. As sharp as her tongue could be — and sharp as a laser sharpened razor blade it most certainly was — the fearlessly self-deprecating and gloriously mean mean mean comedienne was well-known in her real life as a gracious, humble and even cultured woman who shacked up in unabashed, Old School splendiferousness in an 11-room triplex penthouse atop a gargantuan limestone-faced mansion on a super-prime Upper East Side block.

The children may recall Miz Rivers had her gilt-trimmed and chintz-filled Manhattan penthouse on the open market for a good part of 2009 and the best part of 2010 with an asking price of $25 million. In the early days of 2012 the palatial penthouse popped back up for sale with a substantially higher price tag of $29.5 million. (The penthouse was de-listed in June 2013 after it failed to find a buyer. The fate is unknown but it seems unlikely to Your Mama that Melissa Rivers will opt to keep it for her own use.)

The suburban macmansion-sized penthouse spans 5,190 square feet, as per marketing details from 2013, and includes a private elevator landing, a pair of humongous double-height parlors and one small-ish dining room plus a separate sitting room for guests, a pine paneled library with leopard print rug, three bedrooms — hers with a lace-trimmed canopy bed, 4.5 bathrooms, five fireplaces, a small office, two planted terraces, and two New York City-sized kitchens. Monthly taxes and maintenances total $20,100 according to digital marketing materials.

In addition to her Manhattan penthouse — and the bedroom she occupied at her dedicated daughter Melissa’s Pacific Palisades (CA) residence where she often filled her web-based chat show “In Bed With Joan.” — Miz Rivers maintained a 76-acre country spread in New Preston, CT, that she bought in late 2000 for $1,438,4000, put up for sale in mid-2009 for $6.5 million and sold last year for $4.4 million.

The bucolic spread — at least at the time she listed it in 2009 — has a 5,760 square foot stone and clapboard main residence with four bedroom and 4.5 marble bathrooms, a detached barn/garage and a good-sized pool house.

Listing photos and floor plan (New York City): Douglas Elliman (via HotPads)
Listing photos (Connecticut): Klemm Real Estate

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