Four years after former Salomon Brothers chairman John Gutfreund died at the age of 86, and one year after his widow Susan Gutfreund sold their 12,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue apartment for $53 million to billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, the bulk of their New York possessions are going to auction at Christie’s.
“From a timing point of view, John did die several years ago, and the process of selling an apartment on this scale is not an immediate one,” says William Strafford, a senior international specialist of European furniture and decorative arts at Christie’s. “Obviously, for Susan, without her husband, it was a pretty large apartment to be living in on her own.” (The apartment’s original asking price was $120 million.)
The auction was previously scheduled for December. Now, starting on Jan. 14 and running through Jan. 29, a series of live and online sales will offer more than 665 lots, almost all from the New York apartment.
The sales carry an overall high estimate of $7.4 million. When the apartment was completed, gossip columns reported that the apartment had cost $20 million just to decorate. Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $47 million today.
“It’s a reflection of changing tastes and the changing market,” Strafford says of the interior’s 63% depreciation over the last 35 years. “There’s no question that this type of furniture, and this type of environment, is not as valuable as it once was.”
It’s also, he continues, a product of Christie’s approach to its sales: Lower prices generate more excitement and more bidders.
He notes that the Gutfreunds were often buying retail and are now effectively selling wholesale. “In a sense,” he says, “it’s the equivalent of buying a whole wardrobe of haute couture and then selling it.”
Not coincidentally, one of the Christie’s sales will be devoted exclusively to Chanel fashion jewelry gifted to Susan over the years by Karl Lagerfeld.
Return on Investment
There are early indications of a better-than-expected return.
In 2012, the couple auctioned the contents of its Paris townhouse; that sale netted just over its high estimate of €1.75 million $2.1 million).
And this year, Stair Galleries in Hudson, N.Y., held two sales consisting of contents from the Gutfreunds’ country house in Villanova, Pa., along with pieces from their New York and Paris houses.