Manor Only Fit For A Model

Very blond, well-boned, expensively jeaned buyers have been pouring into East Village apartments for so long that it’s hard to find new excuses to complain about the area’s über-gentrification. But then again, it’s hard to remember when someone as upsettingly young as Lily Donaldson, the 21-year-old Vogue cover girl, spent anything like $2.2 million on a neighborhood apartment, especially one that happens to be as far east as Avenue B.

Her new two-bedroom place on Tompkins Square Park around East Eighth Street could be the most expensive co-op ever sold on the block, The New York Observer reports.

She has Brazilian cherry wood floors (“that glow with the setting sun,” according to it's listing), two bathrooms with original pedestal sinks and cast iron tubs, a 40-foot-long living room with six windows facing three directions, and, of course, a dressing room off one of the two bedrooms.

On the downside, the building is massively nondescript and un-frilled, plus the apartment needs work. “I’d put money into it,” Mr. Davis said, “I’d bet she will, too.”

Ms. Donaldson was “the highest bidder and very qualified. The board liked her and approval was unanimous, which is always a concern when you’re dealing with a young model,” the broker said. “You’re never sure how a board would see her.”