The $238 Million Apartment That Started It All

The building

220 Central Park South, Robert A.M. Stern's limestone tower for Vornado, was conceived as the quietest kind of trophy: no press previews, no listings portal glamour shots, an off-market sales process run like a private club admission. It worked. The building became the highest-grossing condominium in American history, its buyer list a roll call of finance and industry principals — many of whom, crucially for this story, lived primarily somewhere else.

The deal

On January 23, 2019, Citadel founder Ken Griffin closed on the building's multi-floor penthouse for $239,958,219 — reported at the time as roughly $238 million, and still the most expensive home ever purchased in the United States. Griffin, then and now a Florida resident, reportedly intended the apartment "as a place to stay when he's in town."

The timing could not have been more combustible. The subway was mid-crisis, Amazon's HQ2 deal had just collapsed in a fight over corporate subsidies, and Albany's new Democratic majority was hunting for revenue. Into that atmosphere landed news that the priciest home in American history would be occupied a few weeks a year — by a buyer who, as a non-resident, would pay no New York income tax on the fortune managed from his firm's offices.

The reaction

State Senator Brad Hoylman's pied-à-terre tax bill had been sitting in committee since 2014 (the full history). Within a month, it was the most talked-about bill in Albany.

"Billionaire oligarchs who own $238 million second homes can afford to pay a little more to sustain our subways, our schools and our city."— State Sen. Brad Hoylman, February 2019

Under the 2019 proposal — 0.5% to 4% annually on second-home value above $5 million — analysts calculated Griffin's penthouse alone would have generated about $8.9 million a year for the city. The purchase became the tax's poster child, cited in every hearing and headline. When the measure collapsed that April (Albany substituted the one-time progressive mansion tax instead — the comparison here), Griffin's penthouse had still accomplished something durable: it made "pied-à-terre tax" a household phrase.

The 2026 sequel

Seven years later the apartment returned for the second act. Newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani chose the sidewalk outside 220 Central Park South as the set for his Tax Day 2026 video announcing the renewed pied-à-terre tax push — "specifically designed for the richest of the rich, those who store their wealth in New York City real estate, but who don't actually live here."

Griffin fired back — "creepy and weird" — and threatened to cancel Citadel's planned $6 billion Midtown tower, noting his firm and employees had paid $2.3 billion in city and state taxes and given $650 million to New York charities. Governor Hochul soothed ("thank you, and can you consider more"), Griffin signaled the tower would likely proceed alongside a doubled-down Miami expansion, and on May 28, 2026 the tax his purchase had inspired was signed into law. The full political story is in How the Pied-à-Terre Tax Finally Passed Albany.

What the penthouse teaches every owner

The irony of the origin story is that the law it produced mostly does not touch $238 million penthouses differently from $2.4 million pieds-à-terre. The enacted surcharge catches condo and co-op units above just $1 million in assessed value — a threshold that sweeps in thousands of ordinary luxury apartments, not only trophies. If the Griffin saga made the tax famous, the fine print is what makes it expensive for people who have never made a headline in their lives. Check where your unit stands in the main guide, or let us pull your actual assessed value for you.