Taylor Swift came out on top in a lawsuit filed against her in 2017, claiming that she owed a Manhattan real estate broker a whopping $1.08 million commission for the purchase of her Tribeca townhouse.
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In the case, a broker claimed that he had shown the three-story property to a rep from Swift’s company, Firefly Entertainment, in February 2017, and even gave the rep blueprints to the townhouse; the singer snapped it up for $18 million later that October. But the broker claimed he was never paid the hefty commission fee, and thus filed a lawsuit against the “Look What You Made Me Do” singer. Swift argued that she had never signed a contract—and on Thursday, a Manhattan federal court judge agreed, siding in Swift’s favor and relieving her of having to pay the hefty commission.
In addition to the four-bedroom home, the Grammy Award winner also owns three apartments on nearby 155 Franklin Street. Her most recent purchase took place in late January 2018, when she snapped up a second-floor,3,540-square-foot apartment from financier Jeremy Phillips.
(The two other units she owns in the building are, by contrast, top-floor apartments that she combined to create an unreal penthouse duplex measuring a sprawling 8,000 square feet. Fun fact: The combined penthouses previously belonged to Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson).
As for the townhouse in question, Swift dropped a cool $18 million for the light-filled apartment, which was renovated by architect and designer Leopoldo Rosati in 2011. And it has its own pseudo-celebrity pedigree as well: At one point, the townhouse belonged to disgraced International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Source: architecturaldigest.com
The late, great Aretha Franklin was one of Detroit’s most celebrated residents. The Queen of Soul’s reign in the Motor City has come to an end, with word that the singer’s estate has sold off her property in the city proper.
While the Detroit home sold quickly, there’s still a home on the market owned by Franklin’s estate if you’re looking for your own piece of pedigreed property. On sale for $800,000, the five-bedroom home in the posh suburb of Bloomfield Township MI, was built in 1990.
Her heirs are making quick work of selling off the properties. And although the properties will acquire new owners, the city will always bear the indelible mark of Franklin’s achievements.