HOT PROPERTY

From Billy Joel to Madonna, from Jann Wenner to Andrew Lloyd Webber— Linda Stein is the Realtor to the Stars

BRAD GOOCH

It's the night of the Grammy Awards. Linda Stein, Manhattan's real-estate broker to the stars—especially rock and movie—is working the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic party at "21."

She's maneuvering—short and feisty, in one of her trademark black Chanel dresses, ink-black hair in a China chop, wearing lots of the kind of ruby lipstick that smears on champagne flutes— through a crowd of presences so familiar they seem like holograms: Prince, Anita Baker, Randy Travis, Terence Trent D'Arby, Jody Watley, Lou Reed.

"This is my family, this is my family," repeats Stein in a voice akin to Joan Rivers's Scarsdale brogue, but with more of a vulnerable whine to it. "I could have gone to the RCA party. Or the CBS party at Four Seasons to see Michael Jackson. But Warner's is like family."

Not far away is her ex-husband, Seymour Stein, the eccentric genius of Sire Records, who has signed, sealed, and delivered such famed city-eastern acts as Madonna, Talking Heads, the B-52s, and the Ramones. Seymour is busy introducing a new song talent, eighteenyear-old Tommy Page, until recently a coat check at Nell's, to the head of publicity at Warner's. The Steins' two teenage daughters, both in chic black, are sneaking cigarettes.

But Linda Stein has her own funny business to attend to. There are as many clients and potential clients here for her multimillion-dollar apartments on Central Park West, Fifth, and Park, or town houses on the side streets, as there are filigreed silver trays piled with fishy hors d'oeuvres.

Stein kills five minutes schmoozing with Jann Wenner, the publishing pasha of Rolling Stone. He bought Perry Ellis's West Seventieth Street town house from Stein early last year for a cool $4.2 million, thus raising the median going price on Manhattan s Left Bank by about a million. She then bustles over to chat up David Sanborn, winner of a Grammy that night. The young, silver-haired sax player grabs Stein—who barely comes up to his chest—in a hug, obviously likes her. She announces, loudly, that his percolating deal on a brownstone is ready to go to contract the next day. "I thought the most moving part of the Grammys was when David and Billy Joel performed together," Stein gushes to Sanborn's lawyer. "I had tears rolling down my face. I turned to Seymour and I said, 'And the best part is they're both my customers.' "

Linda Stein is a natural. She's hustling. Sure. Making bent moves to get from one groovy prospect to the next. Shaking her booty. But she's obviously also a true fan, a groupie who's cashing in on her enthusiasms. "I consciously go to the Russian Tea Room or Canal Bar or Spago," she admits. "I have to say I drag myself sometimes to an opening or some exhibit or some charity party because I want to be seen, I need to be seen, and I do have a business image. But as far as going to a concert, that's passion."

Descending a narrow banistered staircase to the first floor, Stein stops traffic as she is passed by a star on the ascent. "That's Terence Trent D'Arby," she squeals. At which point one of D'Arby's band members, in a jeans jacket with metal spikes on the back as prominent as those of a stegosaurus, shouts up to his comrades, "That was a funny one." But Stein is unfazed. This trendy broker, whose most recent platinum apartment was a Trump Tower extravaganza sold to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman for an estimated $6 million, proceeds self-confidently down the stairs.

At all this star-grazing dates back to 1971. That's when Linda Adler married Seymour Stein. Until then she had been teaching school in Riverdale, the bricky part of the Bronx, where her father was a kosher caterer. She took off one spring to sell cashmere sweaters in a boutique in Paris, and when she returned, an ex-student made a match for her: "I always wanted you to meet my rich uncle."

Seymour Stein wasn't exactly rich then. But he was starting to spin. In the days before record charts were computerized, each magazine had a charts clerk who dialed a rotary phone to ask select record stores, ''How much did you sell?" It was a powerful spot. Stein created the Top 100 charts for Billboard. Then he became a force in record promotion, paid to flash records around to the record stores he'd been calling all those years, and to radio stations. Finally, in 1966, he started Sire Records.

Sire's first hit was a freak—a yodeling number by a Dutch band named Focus. A friend recalls that Seymour and Linda threw a dinner party the night the band was to appear on its first television show. When the broadcast began to air, the Steins skedaddled into their bedroom, in front of all their guests, and jumped up and down on the bed like two spirited kids, shouting at the screen, "Yodel for me. Yodel for me."

"I wondered to myself if that was the way it was for Ahmet and Mica Ertegun the first time," says a friend dubiously.

Linda Stein then worked for Sire Records. But not too close to home. "Seymour said he didn't want it to look like a candy store," she recalls. So she handled the European biz. And began to manage a proto-punk band, the Ramones, whose rapid-fire guitar work and greasy black hair defined the hard edges of punk at CBGB's—downtown's most radical venue in the mid-seventies.

"I would leave my two young children periodically," she says, "grab a leather jacket, and travel on the road with the band and the guitars and the roadies."

Her co-manager, Danny Fields, then an editor at 16 Magazine, admits he became Linda's friend by design. "It's hard to believe, but in 1973 Elton John was the major teen idol in the United States. And it was hard to get anything on him. Someone told me that his best friend in New York was a woman named Linda Stein. So I tried to become her friend. I ran pictures of Linda and Elton running through airports together with captions like 'Elton John with the fabulously rich and socially powerful Linda Stein.' Who could not have their heart melted by such press?"

Elton John and Linda Stein were often spotted together during the Roaring Seventies backstage at concerts, lolling on banquettes at Le Jardin, buying furs at Saint Laurent and Elsa Peretti jewelry at Tiffany's. At John's fortieth-birthday party, his manager introduced Linda Stein to Prince Andrew as "the First Friend," to which she quipped, "I'm Elton's Betsy Bloomingdale."

Elton John was also an indispensable fifth wheel on the Steinmobile. The Steins led a madcap life for many years, filled with lots of planes flying in opposite directions, traipses around Beverly Hills, shouting matches in Chinese restaurants, run-ins with bellhops and gasstation attendants. The two loved to get in trouble. "Our marriage for me was like eight years on a roller coaster, and not always strapped in," cracks Seymour Stein. In 1979, however, the ride bumped to a halt and the Steins were divorced.

But if "networking" can be considered a family affair, the Stein family is still a threat. Seymour Stein likes to take credit for his ex-wife's first foot in the door of apartment brokering. They had collected Art Deco from Sotheby's star auctioneer, Edward Lee Cave, and when Cave moved over to Sotheby's international realty division in 1976, Seymour Stein decided it was time to sell his lantern of a triplex penthouse in the San Remo. Linda Stein stepped in as the "finder" (with fee). And Cave sold the haute property to Jacob Rothschild for $1.6 million—a record at the time on Central Park West.

In Wall Street, Sylvia Miles's portrayal of a real-estate agent chattering on about "Sean and Madonna" was a direct Linda Stein imitation.

In 1982 Cave, a dandy of Upper East Side apartment brokering, split from Sotheby's to set up his own high-hat sales salon, Edward Lee Cave, Inc., dealing almost exclusively in what he prefers to call "the room at the top"— plush apartments selling for millions in pre-war buildings on Park and Fifth. When Linda Stein announced that she wanted a slice of le gratin, Cave balked: "Oh no, no, no. Every divorced girl in New York is a broker. You can't do it, too." But Stein talked him into it.

In the last four years Stein has sold an entire Liz Smith column of boldfaced apartments. She found Madonna and husband Sean Penn their apartment on Central Park West. (At the San Remo, Madonna's first choice, Stein couldn't persuade the board, that all-powerful tenants' committee that must approve new residents, to accept her, probably because Madonna's application was presented the week the nude photos surfaced in Playboy and Penthouse.) She aced two deals in one when Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley bought two Central Park West apartments on top of each other to turn into a duplex, and ferreted out an atmospheric Riverside Drive nest for director Paul Schrader and actress Mary Beth Hurt. Last year she tallied up seven deals, with her Wenner and Webber rhyming sales alone adding up to over $10 million. (Stein splits a 6 percent New York State sales commission with Cave, Inc.)

Stein has sold Luther Vandross's duplex penthouse on Madison Avenue. She harbors an "exclusive" to sell Lester Persky's Hampshire House duplex on Central Park South, and she has recently been spotted exiting doormanned buildings, clutching floor plans and listings and keys, in the company of such high profiles as Sylvester Stallone, Warren Beatty, Steve Martin, Springsteen manager Jon Landau, and LaToya Jackson.

"The funniest thing is that all these famous people want to know how many windows other famous people have on the park, or how high their ceilings are," dishes Stein.

Of course, not everyone approves of Stein's gossip-columnist tactics. Nor of what is often perceived of as a vulgar, or pushy, or garish, style. She's turned the volume way up in a business that was once the hushed domain of a few Park Avenue ladies who traded tony apartments over lunch. And some of her colleagues are complaining. "In the business, she's thought of as a real barracuda," says one off-the-record agent. "She's very aggressive at building her client base. She lives in a building full of celebrities, and she's been known to hound her neighbors until she gets to the clients she wants."

Even, or especially, ex-husband Seymour Stein can't ignore her competitive chutzpah: "If Wagner had written an opera with a Jewish girl as the heroine, like Briinnhilde, one of those warrior types, that would be Linda. She fights for what she wants. She's a good winner. She's a bad loser."

The closest Stein has to an interloper on her turf is Roger Erickson at William B. May Co. Erickson recently married one of Stein's old rock contacts, Susan Blond, formerly a publicist at CBS/ Epic, currently freelance, forever a graphic 2-D presence at downtown clubs. Erickson, who also once worked at CBS Records, has sold apartments to its president, Walter Yetnikoff, as well as to jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. He takes credit for putting Pia Zadora "in the town-house mode"—though he didn't cinch a deal there—and drops John De Lorean's name as a maybe. He and Stein have crossed paths, occasionally. But their professional feud as yet has few smoking guns.

"I think he's very successful," says Stein dismissively. "But I can't think of a single celebrity he's sold to."

Conflict crackles in her own office every so often. Edward Lee Cave, Inc., is mostly a Waspy affair. Vying with socialite apartment broker Alice Mason (who sold a record $8.5 million apartment to Mort Zuckerman in 1986), Cave scours a beat that includes galas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur, fancy Park Avenue dinner parties, charity balls at the Pierre. And he has pieced together a well-connected staff of Locust Valley debs and Harvard Business School grads who need to sell only about fifty swank apartments a year to be dealing with $100 million.

Stein doesn't quite fit in. "I don't like being a novelty act," she complains. "I don't think there's anything amusing about who I am or what I do... these celebrity things and the fact that I get really excited when I go to a concert... These people! I don't believe that there's somebody who doesn't know who Elton John is. Or somebody in my office who didn't know who Whitney Houston was."

But Linda Stein's audacious and campy business style, considered by some on the cutting edge of bad taste, seems only to endear her more to her pack of rock 'n' rollers, movie idols, and nouveaux riches looking for cash pads. "Andrew was quite comfortable with Linda's earthiness," says Peter Brown, a former Beatles manager now working as Andrew Lloyd Webber's publicist. "The Edward Caves can deal with the society types, whose parameters are more narrow, who know exactly what they want, where they can live and where they can't live. But someone coming from our world is more complex in their needs. If Linda was just another divorced woman in real estate whose husband had been a lawyer or stockbroker, she wouldn't be able to deal with a Jon Landau or an Andrew Lloyd Webber."

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"She's gutsy and bright and looks expensive and she's 'in,' " says Sylvia Miles, whose portrayal in the socialrealist movie Wall Street of a real-estate agent trying to sell a high-priced highrise one-bedroom to yuppie Charlie Sheen, while chattering on about "Sean and Madonna," was a direct Linda Stein imitation. "She's very devoted, tough, honest, aggressive, sweet, charming, and infuriating," says Jann Wenner. By "infuriating" he may be referring to her slightly self-destructive bent for pulling head trips on some of her headiest clients. Stein has told quite a few friends the story of once showing an apartment in a chichi building to Warren Beatty. Supposedly, Beatty kept asking, Who lives to the left? Who lives to the right? Which jazz musician is it who lives upstairs? "What difference does it make?" Stein snapped back. "Robert Redford? Warren Beatty? It's all the same."

"If Wagner had written an opera with a Jewish girl as the heroine, like Brünnhilde, that would be Linda," says Stein's ex-husband.

Another time Sylvester Stallone called from his car traveling down a Los Angeles canyon to ask about an estate in Greenwich, Connecticut. "Forget it!" Stein answered. "Rambo in Connecticut just doesn't happen!"

Later, Stein led Stallone to a manytiered Lost Horizon duplex over the park, filled with brash paintings and woozy furniture. Beknownst to Stein, but not to her accompanying maelstrom of machismo, the apartment's Philippine Hazel was a serious Stallone worshiper. "The apartment was filled with beautiful Warhols, and then this maid who was the biggest Stallone fan in the history of the world," giggles Stein. "She had a double staff room, and the walls were just covered with all these magazine photographs of Sylvester that she had cut out and pasted up. When he walked into her room that Saturday, she almost fainted."

By now Stein has learned most of the ins and outs of apartment maneuvering. She is wary of the "help." (Doormen and elevator men hassled Stallone so much for autographs that she had to steer the most boffo of box-office attractions to town houses.) A bit of a publicity hound, she has a love-hate affair with the press. (She claims that Madonna is still chilly after a photo of Stein and Madonna exiting an East Side building ran on the front page of the New York Post. "It's like killing the messenger," pleads Stein.) And she has learned some of the tricks of placating co-op boards. (On a recent application for one of America's foremost screen actor-comedians, Stein shrewdly listed "actor" last, after about seven other, more desirable professions, such as "author," "screenwriter," and "producer.")

Often posing as a glamorized airhead, Stein actually monitors the details of her market as soberly as any of her more conventional colleagues. "The stock market hasn't affected my business at all," she says about Black Monday. "I think there's actually a shortage of properties, or great properties. The average rock, star or the average movie star does not have his money tied up in Wall Street. I guess Park Avenue's been affected and investment bankers have been affected. But I don't think record sales are down, and I don't think box office is down."

Practice has made Stein street-smart —at least in the ways of three or four smart streets. But she still thinks her years handling punk acts overseas gave her a leg up. "I have deals where the man's in Paris, the woman's in Tokyo, the business manager is in Los Angeles, the lawyer's in New York, and that's just the buyer's side," she declaims. "I think that the average New York City broker who's selling a co-op on Park Avenue is not as quick to call Japan and Paris. But I'm coming from working in the international record business. I know how to dial long-distance."

Even Stein's New York businessperson status chip—a leased medium-size silver-blue BMW with a full-time driver —has rock 'n' roll affiliations. Its chauffeur is Elton John's ex. "I think it's more of a feminine statement to have a smaller car in a lighter shade," says Stein with exaggerated Mae West biggirl-little-girl seductiveness. "Not one of those black Mercedes with drivers you see everywhere."

It's suppertime in Los Angeles. Linda Stein and a male friend have stopped at Mortons, a trendy, sea-weatheredlooking, formal-feeling restaurant in West Hollywood. Stein, who doesn't have a reservation, agrees to cool her heels at the bar for five minutes, but she complains that she could command a table at Le Dome in a snap.

While Stein fidgets restlessly on her barstool, an Oscar-nominated actor with an unmistakable abstract leer sits on the adjoining stool. "We're staying," Stein immediately stage-whispers to her friend.

One of Mortons' sea-weathered-looking blond waiters steps up to ask the actor if he would like to go to the table or wait for the Oscar-nominated producer who's joining him for dinner. The actor opts to stay put. Stein's antennae shoot way up. She's been in hot pursuit of this particular producer, who's in the market for a Manhattan address. He was referred to her by a mutual friend, but has been giving Stein the runaround. "He was very difficult," complains Stein. "He kept changing appointments, not returning phone calls."

The producer arrives with yet another Oscar-nominated actor. The three stand together near a beefed-up potted palm, in a bronze glow of potential greatness. Stein decides it's time to act. She heads out to powder her nose.

As fiscal fate would have it, the second Oscar-nominated actor, who deployed depth charges in his recent portrayal of a capitalist villain, is actually a pal of Stein's. And when he sees her passing by, he gives her a big bear hug and a sloppy hello kiss. Then, arm still wrapped around her shoulder, he introduces her to the elusive producer.

"Do you know my friend Linda Stein?" he asks.

"She's my broker," beams the producer.

It's gilt by association. "Now he calls me every day," gloats Stein. "He can't get enough of my apartments."

Linda Stein's is a very kissy business.