According to sources only available to Page Six, Julia Koch is the unidentified purchaser of a pair of East Side co-ops that sold for $101 million last month.
The late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s estate sold the homes.
A penthouse and a full floor apartment are both available at 4 E. 66th St. Allen reportedly spent just $25 million for the penthouse in 2011, having previously paid $13.5 million for the unit below it in 1996.
The billionaire has recently been on a little bit of a house-buying binge; Bloomberg estimates his net worth to be as high as $70 billion.
The widow of David Koch also purchased a historic Hamptons house next to her Southampton estate for less than the $75 million asking price, Page Six exclusively revealed in late June.
A source close to Koch informed us that he intends to renovate the historic building, but any plans are still in the conceptual stage. Another source claimed that Koch might actually rent out the property to his three adult children and their families.
Additionally, Koch owns a $18 million property on Southampton’s “Billionaire Lane,” which has previously been home to celebrities including Calvin Klein, Leon Black, Aby Rosen, Ian Schrager, and Jay Sugarman.
According to the New York Times, the $188 million sale of a duplex at 220 Central Park South, which was “finalised in late 2021 but not documented until mid-January,” was the highest transaction thus far in 2022.
According to sources speaking to Page Six, Koch recently hosted a costume party in the Hamptons, where there was talk among the attendees that she was buying the apartment on East 66th Street from the Allen estate. Veronica Hearst and Bernard Baruch have both lived in the historic building, which also goes by the address 845 Fifth Avenue.
However, because the private transaction was conducted through an LLC, the buyer remained unknown up until our scoop.
As previously reported, Koch hired renowned designer Peter Marino to create the interior of the $40 million Upper East Side townhouse that she and her late husband, David, bought in 2018.
In 1996, Koch wed David at his Southampton home. The co-owner of Koch Industries was also well-known for his generosity and support of conservative causes. In 2008, he gave $100 million to Lincoln Center and tens of millions to the Smithsonian, the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum, and other institutions.
He and his older brother Charles supported Republicans at all levels of government by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the conservative organisation Americans for Prosperity.
The family, which included their three children, was formerly known to reside in an 18-room duplex at the city’s most prestigious address, 740 Park Avenue. David purchased the apartment from the Japanese government, which had been using it to house its UN representative, according to the book “740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building.”
Since she was spending more time at the family’s Southampton and Palm Beach, Florida, homes, Julia reportedly listed the flat this year for almost $60 million. With her newest purchase, it appears she is now planning to spend more time in the city.
