This “maisonette” has a library with a fireplace, a small powder room, a kitchen and a dining room that leads out to a greenhouse and then a 400-square-foot backyard on the first floor. Saul was the pride of her life,” says a man who is friendly with one of the Steinberg sisters.Anne Steinberg appears to be serious about getting her money back, although it is unclear if her sons can pay her.
In the meantime, the actress and the director reportedly went their separate ways. She hardly spoke to anyone outside her family, not answering many phone messages from friends calling to express their sympathy. “No one lives like that except to make a statement. The 31-year-old yoga addict had been renting out the 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex co-op apartment for almost four years.
He subscribed to After graduating from Wharton in 1959, Steinberg went to work for his father and uncle. SAUL’S SISTER SELLS $10.5 MILLION HOME FOR A MUCH SMALLER LIFESTYLE In March, Kathy and Gayfryd Steinberg, former sisters-in-law, got trapped in the elevator of a $20 million townhouse for sale on East 62nd Street with Gayfryd’s step-daughter, Laura Tisch. When Saul got into financial trouble, so did his sisters, his mother, and his brother, and in the last few months, says a friend, instead of pulling together, family members have turned on one another.
It was the beginning of the end. Mr. Sokoloff bought the 21.6-foot-wide, 78-foot-deep townhouse in 1997 for $6 million from the estate of Mrs. William D. Bell, whose father built the house in 1922. The money crowd was impressed, and many writers not only were grateful to the Steinbergs, they liked them, especially Gayfryd, who became president of Friends of pen.But there were some, including E. L. Doctorow, David Halberstam, and Ken Auletta, who were concerned about pen’s association with Saul Steinberg. According to Saul’s supporters, in 1993 he had begun to try to strengthen Reliance. At one point Lynda Jurist got a $400,000 interest-free loan from Reliance. Julius owned Ideal Rubber Products, a company that manufactured such things as kitchen dish racks, and his children—Saul, Robert, Roni, and Lynda—grew up in comfort. Steinberg then hit on a plan to do an I.P.O. Gayfryd was also eager to marry Johnson, perhaps too eager. They had borrowed millions of dollars, in many cases using their Reliance stock as collateral. He was the short, stout corporate raider, she the tall, beautiful, whippet-thin trophy wife. While living in a three-bedroom apartment at the Helmsley Carlton House, a hotel on Madison Avenue near 61st Street, they are in the market for a $10 million townhouse, brokers say. Gayfryd began to raise money for it shortly after she had met Norman Mailer in 1985, when he was pen’s president. Together those shares accounted for much of Steinberg’s Reliance holdings.Steinberg was also borrowing against his art collection. The day before the auction, she lunched with the dress designer Arnold Scaasi at Amaranth, an East Side restaurant where one goes to be seen and which was around the corner from the Steinbergs’ new three-bedroom apartment at the Helmsley Carlton Hotel. From the outset, insurance was not Steinberg’s real interest. He was so funny-looking and so full of himself,” this man recalls.“Here is a guy who wanted to be accepted and be rich and be a patron, and he did it,” says a financier. Although never proved, it was alleged that Steinberg had bribed a New York politician in order to win a lucrative contract to build bus shelters in New York City. The prospect of its being taken over by a 29-year-old who had no banking experience was understandably scary.It was, looking back, a misjudgment on Steinberg’s part to think that he could get away with a takeover of Chemical. It even lured Woody Allen, who purchased a five-story home one block east last year. Reliance, under pressure from a downturn in the property and casualty insurance industry, reported heavy losses, and Steinberg’s paper fortune of $90 million suddenly dropped to $8 million. As of last June, another eight million shares of Steinberg’s stock had been given as collateral for a $5 million loan from Bear Stearns, and 6.7 million had been pledged to Smith Barney for a $4 million loan. A year later the S.E.C. They were quite witty and loved to have a good time. of $7 million in a scheme that had lasted throughout much of his marriage to Gayfryd. For several days his family wasn’t sure he would live; his left side was paralyzed. The family’s financial crisis has meant riches for Kathy Steinberg, a real estate broker who works for Edward Lee Cave and the ex-wife of Saul’s only brother, Robert Steinberg, she has emerged as Saul and Gayfryd’s exclusive broker, despite talk that her relationship with the couple had cooled off. “Gayfryd was caring for him around the clock at first.” For some time, says a man who worked with Steinberg, “he was totally sidelined.
Anne Steinberg, Saul’s mother, got a $934.82 monthly pension from Reliance for life, even though, according to his will, filed in 1978, her husband had never contributed to the pension fund.