Joan Rivers’ Upper East Side penthouse apartment has just been snapped up by a Saudi Arabian prince. But the sixty-five year old is clearly less than impressed with the palatial Versailles-inspired interiors (which Joan once described as Louis XIV meets Fred and Ginger) including crystal chandeliers, five fireplaces, gilded walls and a sweeping staircase, and has controversially begun major renovations on the apartment.
Source: Zimbio
Prince Muhammad bin Fahd bought the 5,100-square-foot dwelling at 1 E. 62nd St. for $28 million USD. Bin Fahd brought in an architect and designers immediately after procuring the iconic comedienne’s home, sources have told The New York Post.
Source: Corcoran
‘They were here a week after Ramadan,’ The source said of the apartment’s major renovation.
Source: Corcoran
But the reactions from neighbours and fans have had them appear less concerned with the renovations than with the wrath of ‘Mrs. Spencer,’ the lavish apartment’s resident ghost.
Known as Joan Rivers’ former nemesis, the late Mrs. Spencer was the apartment’s original resident, and found fame through a 2009 episode of reality TV show Celebrity Ghost Stories, in which Joan said the vexing spirit was less than welcoming when she moved in twenty-five years ago and began renovating.
Source: Corcoran
‘It was just very strange,’ Rivers stated on the show. ‘The apartment was cold. I could never get any of my electrical things to work correctly.’
When sharing her concerns with the apartment’s doorman, he replied with, ‘I guess Mrs. Spencer is back.’
I was absolutely desperate,’ Joan recalled. ‘Spencer was very angry.’
‘She was still, in her mind, the grande dame of the building. She did not like what was being done with the house.’
Source: Corcoran
In an attempt to rid the ‘ghost’, Joan recruited a voodoo priestess, who performed a ceremony to move the spirit on.
But according to Joan, it wasn’t until she hung a portrait of Mrs. Spencer in the building’s lobby and left flowers in her honour in the apartment’s ballroom, that the ghost was finally pacified.
Source: Corcoran
Joan’s neighbours have other concerns for the apartment’s newest resident, claiming to be worried about the disruption of the renovations, and also the prince’s extensive entourage and gun-bearing bodyguards. We’re sure Mrs. Spencer will be in touch.
