Homebuilding firm chief buys second penthouse in SoHo co-op

The head of a national homebuilding company has expanded his own SoHo footprint.

Ara Hovnanian, the president and chief executive of New Jersey-based Hovnanian Enterprises, has purchased a second penthouse at 420 W. Broadway, this one a three-bedroom duplex that’s next to a similar apartment he snapped up in 2021.

The price of the co-op — which Hovnanian purchased with his wife, Rachel Lee Hovnanian, a painter and sculptor — was $5.9 million, according to the city register, which showed the deal closed in early April.

The seller of the 3,700-square-foot apartment — No. PHA, which features a column-lined living room with a fireplace and a 1,200-square-foot terrace — was a trust linked to architect and philanthropist Deborah McManus, records show. Her husband, journalist Jason McManus, who died in 2019, served as the editor-in-chief of Time Inc. in the late 1980s.

Deborah McManus began trying to sell No. PHA in May 2022, when she was asking $9.5 million, indicating it took almost two years and a reduction of almost 40% for the apartment to find a taker, according to Streeteasy. Ultimately, the buyer of the unit — which also has 11-foot ceilings, walnut floors and an eat-in kitchen — was right next door.

For his part — Hovnanian, who runs a company founded in 1959 by his father, Kevork, an Iraqi immigrant — bought his first home in the building, No. PHB, in May 2021 for $8 million. The two-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot duplex also has a column-lined living room with a fireplace.

It’s not known whether Hovnanian will combine the units into one large home or if that’s even possible. The co-op is actually made up of two buildings — 420 W. Broadway and 94 Thompson St., which are separated by a small courtyard — and the precise location of the penthouses within the complex was not immediately clear. Brad Ingalls, the Sotheby’s International Realty agent who brokered the deal on behalf of McManus, had no comment by press time.