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Plaza Suite Is Manhattan's Priciest Rental at $165K-a-Month

By Sonja Sharp | December 8, 2011 4:50pm
The Astor Suite at the Plaza Hotel rents for $165,000-per-month.
The Astor Suite at the Plaza Hotel rents for $165,000-per-month.
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Evan Joseph

MIDTOWN — This rent is so damn high it would make Jimmy McMillan's handlebar moustache burst into flames.

The price for the lavishly refurbished Astor Suite at the Plaza Hotel is on the market for a wallet-busting $165,000-a-month, making it the most expensive apartment in the history of Manhattan, according broker Melanie Lazenby of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

"The next nearest property to this would be the Cole Porter suite at the Waldorf Towers, which is $150,000-a-month. It's a little bit larger, and a has a couple more bedrooms, but it doesn’t have the views and it doesn’t have the history," Lazenby said.

The lavish listing comes just days after a SoHo townhouse went on the market for $100,000-a-month and was touted as the most expensive Manhattan apartment available for rent.

The broker for the Plaza pad has already fielded three calls from interested billionaires, and expected to show the apartment Thursday afternoon, just hours after it went on the market.  

"We could have it rented out tomorrow, it wouldn't surprise me, or it could take six months to find the right person," Lazenby said. 

So what, exactly, makes the Astor Suite so special?

The luxurious digs include hand-hammered leather walls rubbed with gold in the master bedroom, flatscreen TVs hidden behind vintage artwork, bookcases from Oxford University and an iPad-controlled system that can manage everything from the ambient temperature to the stereo.

Oh, and then there's the Plaza's famous views of Central Park and Fifth Avenue.

"It's the kind of craftsmanship that you would have seen in the Gilded Age," Lazenby said. "This is the type of apartment that would be available to the top one percent, so to speak."