After more than 16 years, celebrated English actor Kate Winslet has made the, ahem, titanic decision to sell a sun-filled duplex penthouse in the heart of New York City’s artsy and upscale West Chelsea Arts District. Listed at just under $5.7 million, and located on a block lined with trees and blue-chip contemporary art galleries, the slightly more than 3,000-square foot condo was purchased in July 2004 for $4.995 million by Winslet and her then new but now ex-husband, Oscar-winning filmmaker, producer and director Sam Mendes.
Tax records show Winslet bought out Mendes’ interest in the property in 2012, the year following their divorce, and since then the seven-time Oscar nominee, who won an Oscar in 2009 for “The Reader,” has primarily used the three-bedroom and three-and-a-half bath unit as an income producing rental that was most recently available on the open market in the fall of 2017 at $20,000 per month.
A long entrance gallery leads to the top-floor spread’s capacious combination living and dining room that, at nearly 48 feet long and 24 feet wide, spans more than 1,100 square feet with a head-roomy 13-foot ceiling and a dozen oversized windows on three exposures that ensure brilliant natural light all day long. An unadorned fireplace provides a minimalistic focal point for the huge space that also includes floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a simple, arguably somewhat compact open kitchen kitted out with butcher block counters, high-end designer appliances and a doublewide island with cantilevered snack bar.
Off the entrance gallery, two good-sized guest bedrooms share a hall bathroom, while the sunny south-facing principal bedroom features whitewashed oak floors, a huge walk-in closet and a fully modern bath with vintage fittings that include a classic claw-footed tub for two. Upstairs, a spacious room with an attached bathroom is well suited as a fourth bedroom or a family room with convenient French door access to a 1,700-square-foot roof deck that offers 270-degree city views that encompass the Highline and the Hudson River.
The penthouse condo, which carries tax and common charges of more than $7,000 per month, is jointly listed with Douglas Elliman agents Lindsay Barton Barrett, Cristina Criado, Christina Abad and Bradley Rodenberg.
Winslet is now married to Edward Abel Smith, a nephew to flamboyant billionaire Richard Branson who formerly went by the name Ned Rocknroll, and they live primarily in the U.K. where they hunker down on a multiacre estate near the seaside community of West Wittering, Sussex, about 90 miles southwest of Central London. Secreted down a private lane where it overlooks Chichester Harbor, the historic estate centers around an eight-bedroom red-brick Georgian residence and includes a giant swimming pool, lush gardens and more than 500 feet of water frontage with a private beach. She reportedly purchased the secluded property in 2011 for somewhere around its £3.25 million asking price, and she filmed the 2019 movie “Blackbird” in one of the neighboring homes.