Celebrity portraitist Annie Leibovitz is selling her Upper West Side apartment, after 10 years facing Central Park. The acclaimed photographer bought the duplex in the tony co-op known as the Brentmore in 2014 for $11.25 million. She’s now asking $8.6 million, according to the listing with Deborah Kern of the Corcoran Group.
The living room in Annie Leibovitz’s Upper West Side apartment. Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran.
In her famously intimate style, Leibovitz has immortalized countless artists during her nearly four-decade career, among them Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, and Keith Haring—and, more recently, Amy Sherald, Simone Leigh, Mickalene Thomas, Faith Ringgold, and Guerrilla Girls for Vanity Fair. She herself keeps a small collection of photographs by the likes of Hiroshi Sugimoto, Robert Frank, Lynn Davis, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Her most celebrated photo took place in 1980, just blocks from the Brentmore at the Dakota. Reportedly, John Lennon had no qualms about stripping naked and curling up next to Yoko Ono, as long as it made the cover of Rolling Stone. Leibovitz and Lennon shook hands on it. The events that unfolded hours later made the photos the Beatle’s last, and Leibovitz his last known photographer.
The kitchen. Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran.
The two-level apartment at Central Park West and 69th Street offers unimpeded views of the park, and therefore a bounty of sunlight, which is what drew Leibovitz to the space. “When I first walked into the apartment over 10 years ago, beautiful light was pouring into the living room windows from the park,” she told The New York Times, referring to a row of large windows that drench the 3,500-square-foot space in natural light.
Another reason was its close proximity to her daughters’ school. But now, with her three children grown up, she’s decided it’s time to let go of the four-bedroom home. “The apartment is now too big for me,” she explained. “I live and work downtown,” referring to the West Village apartment she bought in 2022, “and our house upstate is now our family home,” meaning her Rhinebeck property in the Hudson Valley.
The dining room. Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran.
The apartment is loaded with prewar details, such as a coffered ceiling in the dining room and its original inlaid oak floors. During her decade here, Leibovitz made a number of renovations, including adding an office and redoing the kitchen.
The beige-brick building, constructed in 1910, is no stranger to celebrities. Robert De Niro and Paul Simon have called it home, as has Sting, who took over Billy Joel’s space—all of whom have been photographed by Leibovitz for various publications. Another former resident of the Brentmore is Sean Lennon.
Photo: Evan Joseph for Corcoran.