A wealthy New York City socialite non-too-pleased with the prospect of living next door to France’s top diplomat to the U.S. has thrown a wrench in the country’s $7.8 million attempt to buy an official residence in her Manhattan co-op building.
Ambassador François Delattre and the French government will have to continue their search for stateside digs now that Elizabeth Kabler, resident of famous East Side co-op tower dubbed River House, has gotten her way.
Fearful of too many guests, constant entertaining and of a neighbor who fancies himself above the law, Kabler penned waged a biter campaign to urge her fellow stakeholders to block the sale of the 14-room co-op to French , or any foreign emissaries.
The Wall Street Journal obtained a letter Kabler wrote to her neighbors in June after France first made their bid for the place in May.
‘It is not in the interests of the residents of River House to cohabit with foreign emissaries who are, to a large extent, beyond the reach of the law,’ Kabler wrote.
While the French agreed to limits on the number of armed guards in the building and to limits on sovereign immunity, Kabler’s efforts would ultimately doom the purchase.
After the socialite’s campaign, the board placed tight restrictions on the number of parties the Ambassador would be allowed and on the number of guests allowed at each.
Perhaps it was Kabler’s family ties to diplomacy–her philanthropist mother Leonore Annenberg held the rank of ambassador as chief of protocol under President Ronald Reagan and her stepfather Walter Annenberg was a U.S. ambassador to the U.K.–that fed her fears, but they came at an inopportune time for the building.
The apartment, while among the choicest in the city, has been on the market for years and seen its asking price cut several times.
Perhaps it was for that reason that the broker who handled the almost-sale now maintain there was absolutely ‘no backlash’ following the diplomat’s offer.
‘This is not an increasing trend,’ Sotheby’s broker Pat Wheatley told Expatica. ‘[He] is a wonderful potential resident and I am sure he will find an appropriate residence that he will be happy living in.’