Condos Moving Fast in Former Lyçée Mansion

The final hurdle in the long and tortured dissolution of the Lycée Français’ storied townhouse collection has been removed. Last month, according to listing broker Carrie Chiang of the Corcoran Group, the condo conversion currently underway at the landmarked Carhart Mansion at 3-5 East 95th Street officially had its offering plan approved by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer—a legal procedure that all developments must pass before contracts can go out and money can be transferred. Already, according to Ms. Chiang, one of the apartments has gone to contract, and another contract should go out within a week. Ms. Chiang declined to comment on which of the four luxurious condos designed by the renowned British architect John Simpson—ranging in price from a $12.5 million simplex to a $21 million triplex—had found buyers. But on the matter of price, Ms. Chiang offered a clear statement: "We don’t negotiate," she said. If Ms. Chiang is right, and the apartments trade at their full asking prices, the sales from the Carhart Mansion will total some $70 million—a fourfold increase from the $15 million the Lycée got when the school unloaded the Neoclassical residence in 2002.

The fact that the Carhart Mansion is now entering the residential mosaic of the Upper East Side lowers the curtain on perhaps one of the most protracted, and contentious, real-estate imbroglios in recent history (even for the rarefied corridors of the Upper East Side). The sale of the school’s real-estate holdings to finance the construction of a new $115 million building on the eastern reaches of 75th Street sparked a scandal that got talked about as far away as the floor of the French Senate.