Makeup queen Laura Mercier has a new Chelsea pied-à-terre.
The French entrepreneur, who worked as Madonna’s personal makeup artist before launching her namesake range in 1996 with a former Neiman Marcus executive, just paid $2.6 million for her new digs at the O’Neill Building, as first reported by The Observer.
Mercier’s new two-bedroom apartment will serve as her New York crash pad when she is in the city, as she recently revealed she was moving back to her native France to expand her business in Europe. (Laura Mercier has been sold twice, but she is very much involved.)
Recognizable from its gold cupola domes, the seven-story, 49-unit O’Neill building is a historical condo conversion — it was once a women’s fashion emporium that opened in 1887 — and some of its original features can be seen in Mercier’s new apartment such as cast iron columns.
Elsewhere in the 1,346-square-foot apartment, there are wooden floors throughout, soaring south-facing windows, a large kitchen with Viking appliances and a 150 bottle wine cooler, a walk-in closet in the master bedroom and a honeycomb marble tiled bathroom. The building’s amenities, meanwhile, include a 4,000-square-foot roof terrace with impressive city views as well as an outdoor kitchen, and a full-time doorman.
Mercier will most likely want to give the slightly dated apartment a fresh makeover, and she certainly has the funds to do so after recently accepting an all-cash offer for her $10.6 million two-bedroom apartment at the nearby exclusive Walker Tower condominium.
That 47-unit building, of which Mercier was one of the first buyers, reportedly attracted the likes of Cameron Diaz, Katie Holmes, Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman when it first opened its doors, but the makeup artist decided she needed to downsize if she was no longer going to be in New York full time.