Manhattan's luxury housing market just posted its best week since June, with a Turtle Bay townhouse associated with Katharine Hepburn among the contracts. The priciest home to find a buyer was Penthouse D at a Robert A.M. Stern-designed tower on the Upper East Side, asking $23.8 million. The full-floor unit is said to span more than 5,500 square feet with six bedrooms and six bathrooms.
The report of Manhattan's strongest week since June comes from Crain's New York, which identified a Turtle Bay townhouse associated with Katharine Hepburn among the contracts. A separate account of the Penthouse D contract, including the unit's size and layout, appears in reporting from The Real Deal, which identified it as the priciest home to find a buyer, with a $23.8 million asking price.
The building in question, 255 East 77th Street, sits in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side. It was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects with Hill West Architects serving as architect of record, and it was developed by Naftali Group, according to CityRealty, which also reports the project was planned to include 62 condominium units with its top six floors reserved for full-floor penthouses.
A Tower Built for Big-Ticket Living
Those upper-floor residences come with serious scale. Penthouse C, for instance, is described by Compass as a full-floor, six-bedroom residence with two loggias. The building's amenity package, designed by Yabu Pushelberg, includes a 75-foot indoor swimming pool with scenic views, a fitness center, a yoga room, a spa and treatment rooms, per the same CityRealty listing.
Retail has followed the residential buildout. In November 2025, Portland-based ice cream shop Salt & Straw signed a lease for 1,650 square feet of space at the base of the building, CityRealty reported. Robb Report has noted that with construction nearing completion, the tower's first residents were expected to move in sometime in 2026.
How far along sales actually are remains unsettled. CityRealty described the building as nearly 85% sold as of November 2025, while Robb Report reported that nearly 50 percent of the 62 total units were sold. The two accounts have not been reconciled.
A Season of Big Numbers Across the City
Between June 21 and September 22, 2026, 3,386 New York City apartments and townhouses went into contract carrying a combined $6.4 billion in last asking prices, according to CityRealty's summer market analysis.
Contracts of $5 million or more told a similar story of concentrated dollars: they made up only about 6 percent of deals citywide but nearly 30 percent of the dollar volume, per CityRealty's reporting. Outside Manhattan, the trend held in miniature — One Domino Square in Brooklyn logged eight contracts this summer totaling $24.5 million, enough to land at No. 15 on CityRealty's list and the only Brooklyn building to make the cut.
How This Week Stacks Up
More recent weekly tallies from Mansion Global show the broader luxury segment staying active heading into fall. Buyers signed contracts for 28 Manhattan homes asking $4 million or more in one recent week, up from 25 the week before, with condos accounting for 17 of those deals, followed by seven co-ops and four townhouses. The priciest contract in that week's tally was a four-bedroom condo at 551 West 21st Street in West Chelsea asking $17 million, while the second-priciest was a $16.5 million three-bedroom at the Waldorf Astoria Residences on Park Avenue.
255 East 77th Street has turned up near the top of these weekly rankings before. In the week of November 10 to 16, 2025, Penthouse C at the building was Manhattan's top residential contract, asking $24 million, according to CityRealty's market-insight coverage from that period. That same week's second-highest contract overall was Residence #104 at The Greenwich Lane, asking $15 million, while Residence #4 at 85 Worth Street entered contract at $10.75 million and brought that recently converted Tribeca condo to 80% sold. Downtown's top townhouse contract that week came from 198 Sixth Avenue, asking $7.5 million.
