Nearly a year after getting the lordly honor of listing Brooke Astor's iconic duplex at 778 Park Avenue, Corcoran's Leighton Candler has lost the listing, according to her Web site.
Last March, agents from both Brown Harris Stevens and Sotheby's came to audition for the listing with their brokerages' presidents; a Stribling broker even came in with a colleague who knew the family from church. But Ms. Candler got the listing, Astor's daughter-in-law later told The Observer, because she's "smart, she’s dynamic, she works hard. She’s very funny, she’s from the South—yay! Good girl, like me."
"It wasn’t, 'Did I tap-dance better than anyone?'" Ms. Candler said about her Astor interview. "They were very judicious. And, of course, they cared very much that you’re someone who would present the property well and speak well and all those nice things." (It was probably hard to be charming and proper during the interview: Brokers had to sit in a room with Astor's stately son, Anthony D. Marshall, who had been accused of stealing from his mother while she was ill, as well as bankers from JPMorgan Chase, who had become Astor’s court-appointed guardians.) read more »
