Pierre Residents Facing Eviction Sue Co-op Hotel Over Proposed Sale

A group of residents of the Pierre, the upscale Fifth Avenue residential hotel, are suing the hotel’s board for pursuing a $2-billion sale with a mysterious buyer—which they say will evict them from the premises.

The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by Tory Burch’s LLC, Autumn River. Burch, a wealthy fashion mogul who runs the business that bears her name, was deemed the 88th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2020.

Lawyers for Burch & co. don’t shy away from playing up the ritzy reputation of the landmarked Pierre; they describe it as an “iconic landmark in Manhattan’s skyline” that has “housed celebrities including Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor and been featured in films including Scent of a Woman and Ocean’s 8.” They go on to write that “many shareholders [residents] have lived in their homes for decades and some are now in their eighties and nineties.”

The plaintiff’s lawyers then provide a useful summation of how exactly the building’s cooperative shareholder model works. Each of them, such as Burch, “hold residential leases for one or more of the 77 residential units within the Pierre, with shareholders owning a number of shares proportional to the size of their residential units.”

The 95-year-old building has been under the management of the Indian luxury chain Taj Hotels since 2005, and all parties agree that it is in need of substantial repairs, which the building’s board of directors began extensively considering in 2023.

However, the suit continues, by mid-2025 “the Board began to change course and focus single-mindedly on the sale of the entire building.”

The board argues that repairs would cost an exorbitant $300 million, with a reportedly “authorized” term sheet from this September indicating that a $2-billion sale of the building had been arrived at, with a fairly obscure holding company called Sabre Park LLC (owned by the Khashoggi Holding Company). The exact ownership structure of these buyers, the plaintiff’s lawyers argue, is apparently unknown even to the board of directors (sellers).

The term sheet, Burch’s lawyers say, “would require all existing residents to vacate their properties within a year of the sale’s closing, and provides that any residents who fail to do so will forfeit their share of the proceeds.” In an interesting addendum, they say that the board had rejected a “competing term sheet” from Taj, the current owners of the property.

The residents’ lawyers then allege that the term sheet violates various provisos, which they believe should make the sale null and void. Namely, they say that the terms didn’t get full board approval, as well as violate the fiduciary duties of the board. They also say that a sale would improperly terminate union agreements.

As for what Burch and co. are demanding, they’re starting with an inspection of the board’s “book and records,” in order to “understand the Corporation’s course of conduct” in negotiating the term sheet for the sale.

An attorney for the board dismissed the suit, telling Page Six that “the board was committed to allowing shareholders to understand and vote on options for the Pierre.”