Former U.S. Ambassador to Australia John Berry, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013 and became the first openly gay ambassador to a Global-20 country, is soon putting his New York City apartment on the market.
Berry lives in the Potter Building on Nassau Street, one of the earliest and most iconic cast-iron office buildings in Manhattan’s Financial District from the late 19th century and named Orlando B. Potter, a larger-than-life developer, real estate magnate, and U.S. congressman The prewar co-op apartment, which will ask $2.895 million when it hits the market later this week, boasts soaring ceilings, expansive windows and meticulously reconstructed period details.
“Prior to serving as ambassador, I became the highest-ranked openly gay person when I was sworn in as Obama’s director of the Office of Personnel Management in 2009, so I bring my own bit of history to the building, if you will,” Berry said.
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The notoriously friendly Berry has lived in the second-floor loft-like co-op with his husband, Curtis Yee, and pet labradoodle, Hapa (“half and half” in Yee’s native Hawaiian) since 2016, when they purchased the unit—sight unseen—from Australia.
Former Ambassador John Berry with his husband, Curtis Yee, and their dog, Hapa.
Courtesy of John Berry“I was finishing out my ambassador term and knew we would be relocating to New York for my next position as president of the American Australian Association,” Berry recalled. “Curtis and I both looked and looked for apartments online, and every night, we would compare our top five places, and they never matched up. “This apartment was the first time it was my No. 1 and his No. 1, and we knew it was ‘it’ as soon as we saw the photo.”
What grabbed their collective eye? “It was so unique, and neither of us is drawn to the standard cookie-cutter white box,” he said. “There was this gorgeous 15-foot-tall cast-iron column in the center, and the living area looked perfect for entertaining—which has proved to be the case. We’ve had many great parties here, especially during the holidays when we put up a 14-foot Christmas tree and people say we’re giving the Wall Street tree a run for its money.”
Still, they were admittedly nervous about buying it without an in-person visit. “But all the people in the State Department told me, ‘Oh, ambassador, just go ahead and sign the papers—we’ve all done it. Jump off the cliff!’ So we did, and we’ve absolutely loved it.”
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Berry pointed to the building’s unique history as another significant draw. Located across from City Hall on a stretch of Park Row once known as “Newspaper Row,” the ornately embellished building housed the New York Observer and the Otis Elevator Company—“which in 1880 was a high-tech start-up,” Berry said, laughing.
The Potter Building also took on the mantle of the “”first fireproof building in NYC,” according to historical records, after surviving the Park Row fire of 1882, which broke out in the New York World newspaper building and destroyed it and others nearby. That safety construction carries over to the present thanks to structural steel encased in terracotta, walls built with plaster and brick (those on the ground floor are 40 inches thick), beams of rolled iron and internal cast-iron columns.
The Potter Building, one of the earliest office buildings in Manhattan’s Financial District from the late 19th century.
Anastassios Mentis for Brown Harris StevensBesides being non-flammable, the facade is aesthetically significant: The exterior of the first two floors is clad in cast iron, and the rest features terracotta ornately carved with garlands, masks and mythological figures. Indeed, the building was landmarked in 1996 as one of the finest examples of sculpted terracotta remaining in the city—and the immediate neighborhood was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
Though the commercial property was converted into a residential cooperative in 1981, much of the period details in the common areas have been preserved, including the Queen Anne and neo-classical details favored by its notable architect, Norris G. Starkweather.
The same could not be said for the interior of their unit when Berry and Yee moved in. The dated apartment had last been renovated in the 1970s, Berry said. The dropped ceiling, in particular, was an eyesore—and when the workers drilled a hole, they discovered almost three additional feet above it and enough of the original plasterwork to do a meticulous restoration project.
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“At the same time, City Hall just happened to be undergoing a restoration across the street, and I struck up a conversation with some of the workers there who introduced me to the talented plasterers who had done the work,” he recalled. “Based on the intact pieces, they replicated what it would have looked like in the 1880s and did a beautiful job.”
One of the components they decided to keep was the custom solid cherry cabinets in the kitchen.
“When we pulled the old refrigerator out, we found a handwritten note on the back wall saying, ‘I installed these cabinets on 9/11 and I’m proud to have finished the job.’ The World Trade Center was only two blocks away, so you can imagine the chaos that must have been unfolding around him. Yet this person got the cabinets up, and they are still standing today,” Berry said. “Plus, with their rich patina, they look almost three-dimensional.”
The corner unit is currently configured as a flexible two-bedroom, with a primary suite and two full baths plus one partial bath on the main level and a sleeping area-slash-study on the mezzanine level, with library-grade shelves to house a sizable book collection, according to floor plans provided by their listing agent, Richard Rothbloom, a broker at Brown Harris Stevens.
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Rothbloom said a second legal bedroom can be created where the piano is currently positioned in the living room to incorporate two windows.
Upon entering, the foyer unfolds along a gallery wall into an intimate dining area and then the 34-by-22-foot great room, which boasts nearly 15-foot-high ceilings, ornate plaster moldings and four massive Corinthian columns. Ten soaring double-hung mahogany windows with 4-foot-deep cast-iron sills line the exterior walls, providing southern and easterly exposures. “Standing in the great room makes you feel important and wonderful simultaneously,” Berry said.
The views outside are of two other historic buildings—including the legendary Beekman Hotel, where Edgar Allen Poe is reputed to have penned many of his tales.
Inside, the open kitchen boasts stainless steel appliances, custom storage systems and an 11-foot-long Carrara marble waterfall island. More (honed) marble was used on the treads in the handcrafted cast-iron staircase, which the couple added to replace a utilitarian wooden model.
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The primary bedroom suite has four large closets and an en-suite bathroom with an original stone double vanity and a deep soaking tub.
Other features include an in-unit washer and dryer, radiator heat, custom-designed window treatments and bronze light fixtures.
Building amenities include a rooftop deck that Berry said is being completely redone but has been a popular spot for Friday night dinners, wine tastings and other resident gatherings.
“Evidently, the building has always seemed to have an Australian contingent living there and has become known colloquially as ‘Little Australia,’” Berry said, counting acclaimed Australian author Peter Carey, twice-winner of the prestigious Booker Prize, and celebrated astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who (like Berry) is American but has deep ties to the country down under.
“We regularly hosted government ministers from Australia to give them a platform away from our nonprofit headquarters,” he said. “One governor showed up on Thanksgiving day asking us to arrange meetings for him, and I had to tell him that was not going to be possible. We ended up inviting him and his whole delegation over for this big formal dinner at our house.”
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Berry confirmed that parts of “Winter’s Tale,” a 2014 film starring Russell Crowe (who was born in New Zealand but lives in Australia), were filmed in the apartment. “We happened to be watching the movie and recognized our home, which was cool. It’s funny that the devil lives under the Brooklyn Bridge, which is only a block away,” he said.
The building is within walking distance of restaurants and shopping in Tribeca and South Street Seaport.
“There’s a lot to love about FiDi—the history is absolutely phenomenal,” Berry said. “We would have happily spent our retirement here, but Curtis has been itching to be near his family in Hawaii, and since he has followed me around the past 30 years it was time I repaid the favor.”
He cites other advantages, too—such as the winters will be easier on his aging dog’s joints and being closer to his adopted country.
“It took me over 26 hours to fly from Washington, D.C., to Canberra, Australia, the longest flight of any ambassador,” Berry said. “It will be so much nicer when we are in Honolulu because then it’s just a 10-hour flight and there’s only one hour difference in the time zone. So you don’t even get jet lag when you travel between the two. That’ll be fun.”