The “tax reform” bill that just passed the House contains some bad news for Biglaw partners. And it also contains bad news for owners of expensive homes, who will face new limits on how much they can deduct in terms of property taxes and mortgage interest. Some analysts have suggested that Manhattan home values could drop by almost 10 percent as a result.
Bad for Biglaw partners, bad for homeowners — and therefore bad for Biglaw partners who are homeowners. But don’t shed too many tears for them; as our latest Lawyerly Lairs story will show, they’re still doing quite well for themselves.
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Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a story on New York City apartment buildings that combine prewar beauty and elegance with postwar convenience and comfort. The featured couple that kicks off the article: William Savitt, co-chair of the litigation department at Wachtell Lipton, and his wife Nazak.
(Savitt is a former colleague of mine, and I can attest that he’s as brilliant as one would expect from a former Columbia Law Review editor-in-chief and law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Also, note how Wachtell partners are dominating Lawyerly Lairs as of late; back in May, we covered George and Kellyanne Conway’s $8 million mansion.)
From the NYT write-up:
[The Savitts] fell for the Chatsworth, a 1904 Beaux-Arts apartment building at 344 West 72nd Street, facing Riverside Park, with a brick-and-limestone facade resplendent in cherubs, elk heads, human busts and garlands, which is being converted to a co-op with condo-like bylaws by HFZ Capital Group.
“I came to the lobby, and it was so impressive,” said Ms. Savitt, 51, a graphic and interior designer.
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Bill Savitt
Hyperlink to Nazak Savitt’s website in the original. If you were wondering why a partner at Wachtell Lipton, a notoriously press-shy firm, would be willing to have his multimillion-dollar home splashed all over the pages of the Times, it’s because it’s smart business development for his wife’s graphic and interior design firm. (Check out her portfolio; I’m a fan of her cool, modern aesthetic.)
The lobby, featuring columns and pilasters and paneling and plasterwork, is gorgeous. But we suspect our readers are more interested in the Savitts’ particular apartment, to which we now turn….