Leonard Riggio’s NYC co-op is for sale asking $17M

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 popular student bookstore before taking out a loan to purchase Barnes & Noble in 1971. His innovative approach to book-selling — offering patrons cozy spaces to read and in-store cafes — made the chain a household name.

Leonard and Louise were also avid art collectors. Works by Pablo Picasso and Rene Magritte once lined the high-ceilinged walls of their Park Avenue apartment. Louise sold off much of the couple’s art collection earlier this year via Christie’s. The auction offered more than 30 masterpieces by artists like Andy Warhol, boasting an estimated collective value of $250 million, the New York Times reported.

“This is tough for me to say goodbye to old friends, but I will not put them in storage,” Louise told the outlet. “They need to be seen.”

And the houses need to be lived in.

The recent Manhattan listing follows the sale of the couple’s Palm Beach, Florida residence last November for a whopping $81 million, according to property records.

That 8,005-square-foot, modernist residence features seven bedrooms and seven baths. The Riggio family still maintains a $1.89 million home in Wellington, a village in Palm Beach County, according to records.

A sale is also pending on one of the couple’s residences in the Hamptons — a Bridgehampton home the couple purchased for $5.62 million in 2015, according to county records. Listed in February, the home went under contract in September with a $7.99 million price tag. The 1.2-acre property comes with a pool house, a bocce court and close proximity to Bridgehampton’s Main Street.

The Riggios’ most renowned portfolio piece remains off the market, however. The 13-acre property, profiled by the Wall Street Journal in 2018, hosts the couple’s show-stopping collection of outdoor art pieces by sculptors like Mark di Suvero and Louise Nevelson.

Neither Sotheby’s nor Louise could not be reached for comment.