Fashion designer Phillip Lim’s latest Fall 2024 collection was a well-received love letter to New York, embodying some of the hopes, dreams, excitement and lifestyle of those who are born here or drawn here from around the world.
Now, the acclaimed designer has something else to celebrate — although it may be bittersweet. Lim’s classic Soho loft just sold for $8 million, according to property records. The apartment takes up a full floor of a classic cast-iron building at 19 Greene St. It first hit the market last year for $8.5 million.
Lim will remain in New York, says his listing broker Esteban Gomez of Compass. “He will keep a footprint here and he has a beautiful house on the North Fork that he loves. But he’s been here [in this apartment] for 17 years. There is an arc to the time that you spend in one place as you grow and change.”
Lim, 50, was born in Thailand to Cambodian parents fleeing genocide in their home country; he grew up in Southern California before moving to New York. He considers his designs to be a “New York brand,” according to interviews. Lim’s latest fashion collection was comprised of four themes: live, work, love and play — and they are all here, and interchangeable in the apartment, which was also on the market as a $45,000-a-month rental.
The fourth-floor residence is a spacious 3,500 square feet. A combo of two separate units, it comes with two bedrooms and lots of entertaining spaces. The loft opens to a parlor that features 9-foot, triple-pane windows and white brick walls. A Lim-designed black marble sculpture, included in the sale, separates the parlor from the dining room and a hidden wet bar. There’s also an ebony library with custom bookshelves and a swing, an open living room and a chef’s kitchen, where Lim — the author of a 2019 cookbook, “More Than Our Bellies” — told the Wall Street Journal he often cooked his mom’s Asian recipes. There’s also a small terrace.
Design details include custom baseboard molding, Venetian plaster walls and white oak herringbone floors.
The smart-wired home also comes with its own security system. Lim bought the first co-op unit for $2.28 million in 2007 and the second for around $1.85 million in 2011, which he used as a design studio before he combined and renovated both units for around $3 million, according to reports.
The five-story elevator building, with five Tuscan columns, launched as a warehouse and a store in 1872. It was designed by architect Henry Fernbach and converted to live-work artist spaces in 1986.
The buyer is named Yan Pan, and was repped by Corcoran’s Steve Gold, according to property records.