A penthouse crowning the landmarked Sohmer Piano Building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue sold for $10.147 million as part of Concierge Auctions’ “America 250” live sale, which closed July 29 at Sotheby’s New York with more than $520 million in aggregate bids across eight properties nationwide, according to the auction house’s announcement of the results.
The penthouse, at 170 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District, sits atop a landmarked 1897 building originally constructed for the Sohmer & Co. piano manufacturer, next door to the Flatiron Building. It had been listed for $14.9 million; all proceeds from its sale benefit the Gorongosa Project, a conservation and community-development initiative in Mozambique. Bidding for the property opened July 15 and concluded live at the two-day event, which ran July 28-29 across venues at The Dominick in SoHo and Sotheby’s New York inside the Breuer Building. More than 100 people attended in person, with 55 registered bidders competing for the sale’s properties and buyers participating from 15 U.S. states.
Concierge Auctions, based in New York, specializes in marketing and selling luxury real estate through live and online auction formats, positioning the process as a way for sellers of unique or hard-to-comp properties to secure a firm closing timeline and transparent price discovery rather than an open-ended traditional listing.
Other notable results from the sale included a Silverleaf estate called Vistaero in Scottsdale, Arizona, which sold for $12.4 million, and a property in Costa Rica’s San Jose province, Las Catalinas de Pico Blanco, which the auction house said set a record price for the area, though it did not disclose the figure. Smaller transactions closed across the country: a unit at The Trust in Charlotte, North Carolina, sold for just over $3 million; a home on 2455 West Hill Road in Stowe, Vermont, brought $3.69 million; a New Hope, Pennsylvania, property sold for $2.35 million; a Gulf Breeze, Florida, home brought $2.395 million; and a property in Cle Elum, Washington, sold for $2.45 million. A Dallas listing at 3711 Lexington Avenue also sold, though the final price was not disclosed.
Concierge Auctions CEO Chad Roffers said the results demonstrate continued demand at the top of the housing market despite broader affordability pressures weighing on the rest of the market. “The performance of this sale speaks to the enduring strength of the luxury real estate market and the unwavering appetite for truly rare, one-of-one properties,” Roffers said.
What it means: The sale is another data point for a luxury market that has continued to outperform the broader housing market this year even as mainstream buyers contend with mortgage rates near 6.66% and tighter affordability. Concierge Auctions’ aggregate bid total — more than $520 million against a slate of eight properties — points to deep, geographically dispersed demand among wealthy buyers, a trend RealtyWire has also tracked in Miami’s rise as the nation’s top ultra-luxury home market and in notable individual sales such as Chief Justice John Roberts’ recent sale of his Chevy Chase, Md., home. Live and online luxury auctions, once a niche channel, have increasingly become a preferred route for sellers of unusual or hard-to-comp properties seeking price discovery and a firm closing date, particularly for one-of-a-kind assets like a landmarked penthouse or a remote resort estate where traditional comparable-sales pricing is difficult to establish.
