The bookshelf-lined Manhattan home of Leonard Riggio, the late founder of Barnes & Noble, is on the market.
The $17 million sale along Park Avenue, first reported by Curbed, marks another portfolio offload by Riggio’s widow, the journalist and philanthropist Louise Riggio. Louise, 78, is in the process of parting with hundred of millions of dollars worth of the couple’s enviable real estate holdings, as well as large swaths of their massive art collection.
The real estate portion alone, with recent sale and listing prices combined, appears to be in the $103 million range.
This recent Manhattan listing, repped by Sotheby’s International Realty, comes roughly one year after the September 2024 death of Leonard at age 83 from Alzheimer’s disease.
The couple called this 720 Park Ave. apartment home for decades — so long, in fact, that property records of its purchase are not publicly available.
The co-op apartment’s private elevator landing opens to a 35-foot-long galley, lined with geometrically inlaid floors and custom-built bookshelves. Celebrity architect Peter Marino designed the interiors, according to the listing, but the spacious interiors appear more understated than the leather-loving Marino’s typical style.
The historic white-glove co-op was itself designed by legendary New York architect Rosario Candela in 1928, and has long been home to generations of New York City elites.
Leonard’s more humble origins began in Brooklyn. The son of a cab driver and former prizefighter, he entered the book business while attending New York University in 1965, operating a…