Looks good, people get so OCD on this forum about the veins lining up. Life is too short. Clearly the owners like a non-linear more busy look, given all the glass-fronted cabinets.

I am more bothered by what looks like a poor-functioning inexpensive hood due its lack of capture area and the mesh filters.

Where is this penthouse located?

Miami. They may not have ducted to the exterior venting. Many large multi unit buildings do not.

Looks hard and cold, no place I would want to spend time cooking, but guessing at that price they don’t cook much.

Not my cup of tea for that price, but we don’t see the whole space. Maybe there’s a killer location or view. The island feature is nice, I like that, but I would switch out the door to something else to fit the space better.

Way too sterile looking - like an operating room. The thing that bothers the most is the glass cabinet doors on the cabinets for food storage. Not exactly a pretty detail yet the items provide the only color besides white,black or gray in the room so eye is drawn right to that cabinet! Why not have reeded glass or some other obscuring glass on all the uppers?

The kitchen is closed off, so despite the waterfall edge (which would not pass muster with most people who get such things in this forum) and marble countertops, I am thinking that the kitchen is, in essence "utilitarian" and might be used by someone who comes in to work for the people who live there, and maybe the owners will eat breakfast in there or a snack, but it's not show kitchen and that's why things are sterile-ish in plain sight. I don't know if any of you saw Gloria Vanderbilt's co-op when it was for sale, but it had a biggish kitchen for a smallish Manhattan apartment), very solidly done, SZ etc. but it was very white and utilitarian (and "dated" ) in stark contrast to the rest of the apartment. I doubt she showed it off to friends. I read this the same way.

There is a large formal dining room and there appears to be another more or less "full" kitchen adjacent to the master (full sized fridge, convention microwave built in)

Much of the rest of the apartment comes off as $1xxx per night hotel.

When I saw this kitchen I was dismayed and checked the price again, I thought this must be a $2.6 million condo, not $26!

But now I am confused, You say there are 2 kitchens?

Is this the servants (jeepers, how else to say it?) kitchen?

Marvelous pre-war apratments in New York often have terrible kitchens that have gone through a series of remodelling over the years. That was the case with Gloria Vanderbilt's.

Her entire apartment was a two bedroom, and the kitchen was small and the kitchen remodel was what not seems underwhelming and dated.

If you want to see a lovely, large old-timey kitchen in a pre-war New York apartment, check out the apartment of the late Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre.

Many old NYC apartments do not have have ducted hoods- people just opened the windows.

Also, there was never any mold on the walls in those old buildings. There was always lead so many layers in, it killed any mold that might have grown. No need for fans in the bathroom, unless you just wanted one.

It's a closed off kitchen and the apartment has a full-on formal dining room, and there is a small kitchen area probably near the master suite, so I am assuming that this kitchen was primarily cooked in by the family doing light stuff and a housekeeper or somebody for big meals and entertaining.

Here's Gloria Vanderbilt's kitchen in Beekman Place. For a smallish apartment in Manhattan, this is a pretty big kitchen, I think. I don't think that there is anything wrong with it particularly given the weird shape of it, it's just utilitarian. They probably took what would have been the maid's bedroom and added it to the kitchen. The service entry is behind the pink door into the dining room.

I am kind of surprised it does not have a Subzero refrigerator.

Oh, so neither kitchen is anything to write home about. Not a kitchen I would have in my $26 mill place !

One would expect more professional or luxury appliances, real stone surfaces (no comments on the superiority or non- superiority of real stone, that is just what the tippy-top places have), two large sinks, two dishwashers, separate column refrigerator and freezer. Not that family cooks, oh no, but there has to be space for the catering trays and space for the catering company to come into the kitchen and set-up and do their work, or a chef to come in and cook on "proper" appliances.

Honestly, I think it depends upon how and when you earned the $26M to buy the penthouse. There are people who would want a $1M kitchen to show off to everyone even it was not really actually used, or there was a service kitchen hidden somewhere for all the dirty work. Then there are people who would put the kitchen completely in the domain of a service area to be used by people who work for them. It may have the best of quality everything but it would not be something they showed off to guests. I think the sort of person who relegated it to serviceable is probably dying off.

If i can afford a 26 mil kitchen it will have a well equipped catering kitchen for I will not ever be entertaining in the kitchen. These kitchens are for snacking or the help. I always find it funny when people compare the one percent’s life styles and home priorities to their own. kitchens to the super wealthy are not the status symbols they are to us mere mortals.

true! I guess I was thinking old money values vs nouveau riche but saying it publicly seems snooty. I think Kate and William’s kitchen Vs the kadasians’ is where i was coming from.

It's ugly. It looks like a stockroom. Maybe it is -- there are two kitchens in the place, right?

The other one is a single wall, all-white kitchenette that seems to be near the primary bedroom.

Where is the rest of the listing because I think context is everything.

Based solely on the picture and someone saying this is a closed kitchen, I imagine that it is used by the housekeeper/chef and for informal family meals. It is actually not uncommon for kitchens in the homes of very wealthy people to be utilitarian because they are not used for "entertaining" people but solely for cooking.

There was an ultra expensive home featured on Million Dollar Listing LA that had a show kitchen that was on the main living level and also a "real" kitchen on the lower level with a dumb waiter. The real kitchen was even more utiliarian than this one as it resembled an industrial kitchen. The "show" kitchen was quite beautiful - as I recall it had sumptuous wood slab doors - but probably the actual layout wasn't particularly functional as a "real" kitchen where cooking was done. I am sure it was used more as a staging area than a place where anyone prepped or cooked.

Since this is in Miami I would imagine the owner of it has several houses. They also have the wealth and probably come from a culture where household staff is normal so the aesthetics would be less of a consideration. The picture doesn't look staged as there are a number of less than attractive small appliances on the counter indicating someone cooked there. Without knowing the age of the place, it might be that the "island" is in lieu of a table since many older kitchens had room for a kitchen table.

There was some discussion of Marc Jacob's townhouse when it was put up for sale. He used a loophole in NYC zoning which permits two kitchens because of kosher requirements. He had a very small galley kitchen in the formal living area which presumably was used for takeout or minimal needs. But he had a large kitchen on the ground level that was open to the garden in the back where presumably a lot of entertaining with food was done.🤷🏼‍♀️

ETA - Someone commented on the dysfunctional hood. I live in a high rise and my hood is vented into the wall. There is some kind of open space where it vents to and then ultimately that goes outside the building. This is not an uncommon arrangement in a high rise situation because they don't have a vent going vertical but horizontally running through each floor and venting on the side of the building. When I remodeled I had to find a hood that vented to the back instead of the top and the HVAC also had to make some adjustments in order to move the actual "vent" in the wall to where the new hood was being connected since I had moved the stove and installed an induction cooktop in a new location and wall ovens.

The wealthy often still congregate in the kitchen. I’m not wealthy by any means, but I have spent time with millionaires and billionaires. And though they have chefs and maids, they still congregate in the kitchen. I’m sure elderly Vanderbilts and Carnegie types don’t, because they grew up wealthy in a different time. But this idea that the modern wealthy don’t spend any time in the kitchen, is just not true. They might not cook regularly, but they definitely hang out there.

This kitchen also has an island with bar seating, you wouldn’t have that in a kitchen that is intended for use by just staff.

I agree with you, but I don't think they socialize a lot with friends in the particular kitchen shown in the original post. Except for the waterfall countertop it seems primarily for utility, and it's closed off from the rest of the apartment. And the decor in the guest bedrooms is very old school and hotel like, so I am thinking these people may not be modern or young wealthy. The owners may well hang out in the kitchen at breakfast and lunch and such, but they aren't entertaining guests In it.

White and grey utilitarian and pretty boring. The layout of the appliances would drive me nuts, I do not like having to walk around islands to move between fridge, stove, oven like that. Having a sink in proximity to the stove isn't too bad, but having two seperate sinks right close to each other like that seems kind of pointless too.

It’s definitely a boring kitchen, but just because you have money doesn’t mean you have good or even interesting taste.

My guess is the reason the kitchen looks like this is taste, not utility.

Rich people might have breakfast or cup of coffee in the kitchen when meeting with the housekeeper. It wouod be odd to have a kitchen with no seating at all. Even staff might want to sit at some point. Live in staff would eat in the kitchen 🤷‍♀️

Also without pictures of the rest of the listing who knows whether this is being sold as needing a complete renovation. In my exoerience the very wealthy generally remodel any place they buy unless it is a completely new build. The more expensive, the more likely the renovation.

Regarding the sink, a kosher kitchen would have two sinks and they might be proximate or a catering kitchen would be set up for two people to work at the same time.

At any rate, I would expect the new owner to gut this kitchen and the current kitchen is irrelevant to the final price since it is a tear down and the value is location, size, view and the prestige and amenities of the building. The penthouse in my building was purchased recently and is being gutted. The condition was dated but completely acceptable but I am sure the renovations will create a completely trendy interior versus the old marble style 🤷‍♀️

The bathrooms are very current and the unit is being sold furnished.

Here are the bedrooms. I hesitated to post anything else but the kitchen since this is the Kitchens forum, but it seems like more information is wanted :)

These bedrooms are well-decorated for what they are but there is something very expensive hotel about it and I just feel like the overall style of the bedding and multiple beds per room says to me " I want the apartment to reflect my overall style, but I have grandchildren who visit"

@palimpsest Frankly the condo might be furnished but I don't think anyone is going to keep that furniture. They are throwing in the furniture because the heirs don't want to deal with removing it and they don't want to bother to "stage" an apartment that is going to be gutted.

The place seems to be an estate sale as it has the look of places where the older person died and the furnishings were expensive and "elegant" when they moved in although I don't know when the furnishings would have EVER been chosen by someone who was living in a $26 million penthouse.

When my father retired he moved into an assisted living facility and became very friendy with an older woman who was moving out of a very expensive Los Angeles Penthouse. She was still keeping the Penthouse and testing the assisted living facility so my father went there a bit and was impressed with the decor - probably because it resembled the decor of my mother although my mother's was obviously on a less "grand" scale. This woman was extremely wealthy - she had a chauffeur so the furnishings were expensive albeit of a certain taste shared by women of that generation. 😂 Leonard Bernstein's apartment was famously pilloried years ago for having the "million dollar tchochke look" and that was when a million dollars was a lot of money. 🤣

Whoever owned it was wealthy enough so that she or she probably had the money to maintain bathrooms and kitchen well unlike some of the places I have seen which are pits when a less well to do old person dies and the estate puts it up for sale.

I still think the kitchen reflects the lifestyle of the person who was living there who probably had full time housekeeper. Perhaps she occasionally ate a casual meal in the kitchen but she certainly didn't care that the kitchen wasn't an open showcase for her entertaining needs. If she had any friends over, they were probably served in the living room by the maid.

Of course this is speculation but so far nothing indicates that this wasn't a place owned by an older person who was wealthy and whoever buys it will gut the interior and toss out the furniture. 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

Definitely looks like an elderly person lived there. That whole penthouse will be redone. No one is going to keep that furniture or decor, I’m sure walls will be torn down, rooms moved and the kitchen will be remodeled