This summer, the selection of the real-estate broker for Bernie Madoff’s Upper East Side penthouse garnered almost as much buzz as Madoff himself. When the East 64th Street property arrived on the the market in September, it was represented by Anne Corey and Serena Boardman, Sotheby’s youngest senior vice president.
A year earlier, Serena Boardman made two important sales: a townhouse at 603 Park Avenue for $31.7 and New York’s most expensive coop on 67th Street for 48 million. These deals, among others, totaled $255 million and landed her the Wall Street Journal title of “top earning-broker in the country.”
Boardman’s rise to real-estate mogul surprised many, who knew of her only as a socialite. Boardman’s father, D. Dixon Boardman, is the founder of the Optima Group; and her maternal great-great grandfather founded Citibank’s predecessor, the First National Bank of New York. Growing up, she attended the Chapin School, the Brooks School and Brown, where she studied Political Science and Art History. In the nineties, she and her sister Samantha were “It” girls, who landed on Vogue’s Best Dressed List and were crowned “Princesses of the moment” by The New York Times. (Samantha Boardman Rosen now works as a psychiatrist.)
Boardman, who is known for her discretion, is apt to decline interviews. Her clients appreciate her poise, honesty and intricate knowledge of the city’s elite neighborhoods, people and places. Her colleagues praise her work ethic.
Many people in the industry attribute much of her success to her social connections, namely her brother-in-law Aby Rosen, the New York real-estate developer. However, many others, including President and Charman of Gumley Haft Kleier, Michele Kleier, and Senior VP of the Edward Lee Cave division of Brown Harris Stevens, Kathryn Steinberg, agree that these connections would be lost on someone without her talent, drive and savvy.
Via: The Real Deal
