Tea at Trianon: Ivana Trump’s NYC Townhouse

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, November 21, 2022

Ivana Trump’s NYC Townhouse

From New York Post:

The 17-room Lenox Hill compound that the late Trump called home from 1992 until her death this year has listed for sale, asking a cool $26.5 million. Adam Modlin of Modlin Group and Roger Erickson of Douglas Elliman hold the co-exclusive listing for the five-bedroom, 5½-bathroom, six-story home. Its apt grandeur is immediately visible in the listing’s marketing images. In July, the 73-year-old’s body was found at the bottom of its grand staircase.

Trump purchased the 8,725-square-foot historic limestone row house in 1992 for $2.5 million — some $5.4 million today — which was when her divorce from Donald Trump was finalized, according to the Wall Street Journal. The outlet added that the proceeds of the sale will go to the children she shared with the former president: Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka.

Highlights of the decadent interior include a leopard print-covered library — with leopard print in the wall paneling, along the carpet and even on the furniture’s upholstery, as well as a painting of two leopards playing over the sofa. That space comes complete with gold-tone moldings and window drapes.

Just off that room, there’s a pink fixture-filled bathroom where gold accents extend in the form of faucets, moldings and columns. Listing images also show a grand curved staircase, plus a Versailles-inspired dining room with gold-tone wall coverings, ornate gold moldings and a woodburning fireplace — all under a chandelier hanging from a ceiling dressed with more gilded moldings. That space also includes a smaller eat-in area fronting a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a private interior courtyard.

On the same level as the dining room stands a living room, boldly decorated in shades of red and emerald, underneath a gold fabric ceiling from which another chandelier hangs. In her 2017 book, “Raising Trump,” Ivana described this room as “how Louis XVI would have lived if he had had money.” (Read more.)