A Hollywood celebrity last week bought one of the city’s most prestigious homes on the Inner Harbor.
The opulent, five-story, 9,069-square-foot mansion of late developer Leroy Merritt at Pier Homes at HarborView changed hands last Friday in a cash deal for $6.25 million.
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An aerial view of 622 N Ponte Villas.
The buyer is an unnamed “West Coast celebrity,” said Charlie Hatter owner of Monument Sotheby’s International Realty, which brokered the deal. Hatter, whose company is also listing properties at the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton Residences as well as the Worthington Valley estate of Cal Ripken Jr., declined further comment.
It was the city’s most expensive residential real estate deal since the late author Tom Clancy purchased several condominiums at the Ritz-Carlton Residences in 2009 for $12.6 million. Clancy combined the condos into one.
The luxury home, a combination of two properties, had been on the market since shortly after Merritt’s death in 2010, first listed at $8.5 million. It was most recently rented by Oriole third baseman Manny Machado.
Above: Watch a video tour of the house.
The property sits on the end of a pier that juts out into the Inner Harbor.
It has six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and three half baths, a theater room, four-stop elevator, two garages, a billiard room, dramatic spiral staircase and a rooftop deck that offers a 360-degree view of the city.
Karen Hubble Bisbee, an associate broker and principal in the Lutherville-based Hubble Bisbee Group of Long and Foster-Christie’s International Real Estate is the former listing agent for the Pier Homes at HarborView property.
She said Friday the house attracted several interested buyers from “celebrities to members of various royal families” who toured the property.
“It has a 75-foot rooftop deck with a 360-degree view, walnut flooring and a very sophisticated smart-house technology,” Hubble Bisbee said. “It also has an 85-foot first floor living space. That house can entertain 300 people and not have anyone be crowded. It’s very special.”
Merritt, a successful developer with roots in Dundalk, bought the property as a shell, Hubble Bisbee said. He finished it off to become one of the city’s most posh addresses and lived there for a short while before he passed away.
Melody covers real estate and economic development.
