Chrysler building owner caught in nasty $4.9m divorce

The couple used to live a life of luxury, but now real estate mogul Michael Fuchs must pay his ex-wife $4.9m per year as they battle it out in court.

In happier times, real estate mogul Michael Fuchs — who co-owns Manhattan’s famed Chrysler Building — and his French-born wife Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs lived in a $41 million, six-story mansion in London with an indoor swimming pool and five bedrooms, staffed by a small army of chefs, house managers and even a laundress.

Real estate mogul Michael Fuchs and his French-born wife Alvina Collardeau-Fuchs once travelled the world in luxury. Picture: Joe Schildhorn.

The now estranged couple, who are battling each other in a London family court as they seek a divorce, also split their time among swanky homes on the French Riviera, Miami and New York, where Fuchs, 62, is a principal in RFR Realty, a company he runs with his childhood friend, Aby Rosen, and that co-owns the Chrysler and Seagram buildings in Midtown.

His wife requires millions in support, her lawyer argued this week, and a judge agreed, ruling that Fuchs must shell out more than $4.9 million a year to Collardeau-Fuchs.

The jaw-dropping payout — which amounts to more than $400,000 a month — will continue until the couple’s divorce is settled, according to British news reports.

A final hearing on the split is scheduled for October.

“They ran a number of fully staffed homes in fashionable areas of the world, travelled extensively and spent according to their means, which were effectively unlimited,” said the wife’s lawyer, Nicholas Cusworth, in an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month.

Towards the end of their relationship, the couple had “global annual living costs of more than $1.2 million,” according to court records, cited by the Times of London.

Alvina claims Michael stopped making support payments, leading to staff and utility bills not getting paid. Picture: Billy Farrell.

In 2018, they spent $4.35 million on a West Village condo that once belonged to comedian Seth Meyers.

As their legal battle rages, a fuller profile of the two is emerging.

The media-shy Fuchs, whose net worth of $1.7 billion was revealed in court for the first time this week, married Collardeau-Fuchs, a former journalist, in 2012 following his divorce from first wife, Hamptons socialite and designer Kris Fuchs.

Kris is the mother of his daughters Sage and Laura. Michael also has two children with Collardeau-Fuchs.

Born in Paris, the 46-year-old Collardeau-Fuchs grew up in London, and attended the Tony Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in the city, before coming to New York and studying at NYU.

She’s held jobs at various media companies, including French Vogue, NBC, CNN and CBS, according to her Facebook page.

She also worked as a “brand ambassador” for Delphine Manivet, a Paris-based bridal designer. And the brunette was a regular bold-face name at New York society galas.

Fuchs was born in Frankfurt, where he met Aby Rosen, who would grow up to be a power player in New York City real estate. Fuchs eventually headed to Los Angeles and got an MBA from the University of Southern California.

The Chrysler Building is just a fraction of Fuchs’ $1.7 billion net worth. Picture: Getty Images.

He and Rosen later met up again in New York, where Rosen was working for a law firm, according to a company profile of RFR Realty LLC, the company they founded in 1991.

Their real estate investment group began buying up distressed properties during the recession, and later acquired some of Manhattan’s most storeyed skyscrapers.

The company purchased the iconic Chrysler Building three years ago.

Fuchs and Collardeau-Fuchs, who negotiated a pre-nuptial agreement before their wedding, spent much of their time in court this week haggling over credit card bills and a monthly allowance for Collardeau-Fuchs, who once spent a staggering $1 million on a four-month stay in Dubai, according to court papers cited by The Real Deal earlier this month.

Collardeau-Fuchs claimed that after their separation two years ago Fuchs stopped making $33,000 in monthly support payments to her bank accounts in the UK and France. She said that six months after their split, Fuchs capped monthly expenses on her credit card at $20,000 a month, according to the Times of London.

Through her lawyer, she said that Fuchs had “sought to limit and control her access to funds” and “made her day-to-day living intolerable.,” the newspaper reported.

The couple once had annual living costs of $1.2 million, according to court records. Picture: WireImage

She claimed that utility bills and staff salaries at the couple’s London home went unpaid, leading to threats to “cut the electricity supply.”

Bailiffs showed up at the London residence seeking payment for tax and parking charges, she said.

A lawyer for Fuchs countered that “the majority of the problems have been of [Ms. Collardeau-Fuchs’] making.”

Written statements from the lawyer, Tim Bishop, claimed that Fuchs’ wife “abused the unfettered use” of Fuchs’ American Express card, and spent $273,000 in October 2020, and $185,000 a month later, according to court papers cited by British media outlets.

So far, the warring couple has spent more than $1.2 million in joint legal fees, according to British media reports.

Calls and an email to Fuchs and Collardeau-Fuchs were not immediately returned Friday.

This story originally appeared on The New York Post and was reproduced with permission.