For the past 30 years, a man named A. Justin Sterling has run the Sterling Institute of Relationship, where he teaches men to embrace their inner brutishness. His $500-per-weekend male-bonding seminars culminate, according to an old Post story, with males "frolicking naked, beating drums, leaping up and down and shouting, 'I'm a Jerk!'"
As far as his Manhattan real estate goes, one imagines that Mr. Sterling would either have a kingly Soho penthouse with automated curtains, heated floors, electronic wine coolers and steam showers, or a sinister Murray Hill basement apartment with security cameras, black lights, slowly dripping faucets and yellowing carpets.
As it happens, his tastes are neither heroic nor particularly depressing. According to city records, Mr. Sterling, who was born Arthur Kasarjian, just sold a midsize 31st-floor condo at 45 West 67th Street, one of those anonymous brick high-rises built during the Reagan administration, for $2.5 million. The apartment hasn't been on the market anytime recently; an ancient listing says only that there are good views and a "modern kitchen."
Mr. Sterling, whose Web site's FAQ section concedes that he once pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to a "money transaction with the federal government," sold to a neighbor in the building. The buyer is Dorothea M. Posel, widow of the renowned Philadelphia art-house cinema owner and real estate developer Ray Posel.
"A tenacious man with the physical presence of Russell Crowe, the intellectual force of William Rehnquist, and a pompadour that looked good only on him and Ronald Reagan," The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote in a 2005 obituary, "Mr. Posel gave the impression that he could outmuscle any comer." Mr. Sterling would have been proud.
Ms. Posel had no comment, and Mr. Sterling did not return emails and messages left at his headquarters in California. A Sterling Men's Weekend is coming to upstate New York this June, following a Women's Weekend in May.
