Joan Rivers' penthouse goes on sale for $28 mn

New York, Feb 10
The lavish New York penthouse owned by actress Joan Rivers, who passed away last September following minor throat surgery, has been put on the market for $28 million, the price of fame included.

Financial television channel CNBC, hearing about the offer, aired pictures of the place Monday, a sumptuous residence full of gilded decor worthy of 18th-century France in a Manhattan condo with a view of Central Park.

"It's what Marie Antoinette would have done, if she had money," the channel said, citing the words of the actress and comedian when asked about her home in Manhattan.

Measuring a total of 465 square metres on three floors, the penthouse includes four bedrooms, four and a half baths, five chimneys, a music room and a salon and ballroom big enough to entertain 125 party people.

Rivers, one of the most famous figures on US television, died last September from complications of a minor throat operation she underwent the week before in a New York clinic.

According to the financial channel, she once thought of trying to sell her penthouse for $29 million, but then reconsidered and decided to stay where she was.

The $28 million pricetag, though it seems like a lot, is not all that much in New York terms, and in this case the home not only offers real estate value but also the fame of its former owner.

Last June it was announced, for example, that a penthouse on Manhattan's south side, three times larger than Joan Rivers' home and with a view of the Statue of Liberty, was going on the market for $119 million.