When Gloria Vanderbilt was 91 years old, she and her son Anderson Cooper co-wrote a book called The Rainbow Comes and Goes. It was an e-mail reminder in which Mr. Cooper asked his mother all the questions he hopefully never wanted after her death: her true feelings about her historic, often tragic life, with its unimaginable losses – her own Death of father when she was a baby; his brother Carter's suicide at age 23; the death of his father Wyatt Cooper at 50 (when Anderson was 10 and Carter was 12) – and unlikely highs (such as when Ms. Vanderbilt made a fortune in the 1970s by putting her name on a pair of jeans, changing the fashion business forever only to lose it to a scheming lawyer in cahoots with her own psychiatrist).
Ms. Vanderbilt, famous for her candor (she once wrote an erotic novel and sent Mr. Cooper the galleys), was more than just a game. When asked, her own mortality, and how was she going to face it, Ms. Vanderbilt responded with characteristic humor, quoting Woody Allen who once said that in the face of the choice, instead of living in the hearts of his compatriots, he would prefer to live on he continued to live in his apartment. (She then gave her son further practical instructions: cremation please and in her yellow Fortuny dress. And ask Judy Collins to sing “Amazing Grace”.)
Ms. Vanderbilt died in 2019. She was 95 years old. But as luck would have it, she lived on in her apartment, a multi-layered, magnificent jewelry box of a place that looks like something from "A Thousand and One Nights", adorned with orange swings of silk, pink painted walls, mirrored halls, Russian icons and chandeliers. with Christmas decorations hanging on them all year round. Decorating is an autobiography, she often said, and 30 Beekman Place, her home for nearly a quarter of a century, tells a living story.
Her apartment is listed by Ileen Schoenfeld and Aracely Moran of Brown Harris Stevens for $ 1.125 million; monthly maintenance is $ 4,311. It has two bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen with a breakfast room and two and a half bathrooms. Your ground floor studio – technically a two-bedroom apartment – may also be for sale, the price has yet to be set. (It's a relatively low price for a Classic Five, but the apartment is on a low floor, high maintenance, and is in an area that is a little off the beaten path. Also, it has been around since 1997, as Ms. Vanderbilt moved in, unrenovated. needs total rehab.)
