Title : Wealthy couple drive Manhattan neighbors crazy with $100M basement pool jackhammering
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Wealthy couple drive Manhattan neighbors crazy with $100M basement pool jackhammering
REVEALED: The wealthy Manhattan couple causing neighbors to FLEE the Upper West Side due to the incessant noise caused by their $100M basement swimming pool being constructed in the hollowed out shell of two brownstones
- Malou Beauvoir and Pierre Bastid are doing the mega-renovation of two brownstones on W 69th Street
- Have demolished all but the facade of two adjacent brownstones which they will combine into one home
- Are jackhammering into the bedrock to build a luxurious underground pool and home theater
- Neighbors are miserable and have taken to wearing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones at all hours
- Nervous dogs have been prescribed sedatives to help cope with the construction commotion
- Project was originally scheduled to end in December but may drag through the entire summer
A wealthy couple has drawn the ire of their neighbors in Manhattan with an ambitious $100 million project to install a basement swimming pool in a completely renovated double brownstone.
Malou Beauvoir, a Haitian-American jazz singer, and her 64-year-old husband Pierre Bastid, a Moroccan-born Frenchman who made a fortune in energy, are the couple renovating 48-50 West 69th Street, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Operating under the guise of the Erzuli Corporation, which owns the two buildings that are being combined into one mega-brownstone, the couple have until now remained mysterious to baffled and irate neighbors, who have been driven to wit's end by the commotion.
It is just one example among many of the ultra-rich elite of New York getting their way, to the annoyance and inconvenience of everyone else.
Work crews have demolished all but a few inches of facade and begun jackhammering a huge crater into the Manhattan bedrock on the normally quiet residential street
Malou Beauvoir, a Haitian-American jazz singer, and her 64-year-old husband Pierre Bastid, a Moroccan-born Frenchman, are the couple renovating 48-50 West 69th Street
Erzuli first purchased 48 W. 69th in 2011 for $11.5 million, and the following year the shell company bought neighboring No. 50 for $13 million.
Since then work crews have demolished all but a few inches of facade and begun jackhammering a huge crater into the Manhattan bedrock in order to install a basement pool.
The project was supposed to be completed in December, but has dragged on through the winter, and now may not be complete until the end of summer.
In the meantime, neighbors described to the Times their lives in agony due to the incessant construction noise.
'Noise' isn't strong enough,' said Nick Jordan, a professor of philosophy at Queens College who is 80 years old and has lived across the street at No. 51 since 1971. 'Mindless hell and chaos' would be better.'
'I hope to outlive this. I may not,' he said.
The original two brownstones are seen in 2017. No. 48 has plywood over the stoop and No. 50 is to its right with the grey facade
Plans filed with the city show the original facade (left), an initial renovation plan (center) and the new plan (right)
Initial plans (left) and amended plans (right) show the extra subterranean level that was added to the plans
Cross-section plans show the original 2014 plans (left) and revised plans (right) with home theater, pool and yoga room
Beauvoir, who describes herself as a mambo, or voodoo priestess, apologized for the excessive noise in a statement to the Times through her construction manager.
'Pierre and I deeply regret the inconvenience caused to the neighborhood, despite our efforts to limit it from the onset,' Beauvoir said. 'Unfortunately, we have all experienced the disagreeable aspects of construction and the unpredictability of the process.'
Yet as the construction project has dragged on, the jetsetting couple have been nowhere to be found, as their future neighbors suffer.
'They should live here for a week and listen to their house being built,' said the 69th Street Block Association president, Eileen Vazquez.
'I'm like, 'Look, yay, you have all this money and you can build your dream house and that's fabulous, but you have taken nobody else into consideration,' she said.
Vazquez has installed a decibel meter on her cellphone which she consults often.
Beauvoir, who describes herself as a mambo, or voodoo priestess, apologized for the excessive noise in a statement to the Times through her construction manager
Deborah Brown, a retired editor at House and Garden and House Beautiful who lives at No. 42, now wears $400 Bose Noise Blockers around her apartment.
She has also gotten a prescription tranquilizer, Trazodone, for her miniature poodle Dorian Grey, with directions on the bottle reading: 'One tablet orally up to three times daily as needed for calming during construction.'
Locals say that the nearby Duane Reade is perpetually sold out of ear plugs.
Some neighbors told the Times that they have already been driven to move out, at great disruption and personal expense.
Gabrielle Fink, a 36-year-old violinist, spent $5,000 to move, citing frayed nerves and health concerns from the clouds of rock dust.
Tamar Gongadze, whose third-floor apartment directly overlooks the pit, also fled the area, unable to complete her legal work from home amid the din.
Neighbors chafe that their discomfort comes as the price of someone else's luxury.
Floor plans for the home show an underground theater and a recording studio, a Jacuzzi and a sauna, 'free-floating elliptical stairs' and a wall of sculpture depicting trees, animals and birds.
'It's not as if they're building an orphanage,' said Andrew Resnick, the musical director of 'The Cher Show,' whose apartment overlooks the construction.
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