The influencer and former collegiate gymnast tried to buy the Manhattan two-bedroom, but instead joined the ranks of high-profile rejects like Madonna and Calvin Klein.

July 10, 2025

New York City co-op boards can be notoriously difficult to get past. It’s not just about being rich and successful: Madonna, Mariah Carey, Calvin Klein and Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. have all been rejected. But the social media influencer and former gymnast Olivia Dunne was still shocked that she faced the same fate when trying to buy Babe Ruth’s former apartment on the Upper West Side.

Ms. Dunne, a New Jersey native known as Livvy, shared her story with her eight million TikTok followers this week. “I was gonna pay with cash, like I wanted this apartment bad. Like it got to the point where the realtor was so confident,” she said.

Ms. Dunne, 22, continued: “Then the week that I’m supposed to get my keys to my brand-new apartment, I get a call, the co-op board denied me. So pretty much the people in the building voted to not have me live there.”

The apartment at 345 West 88th Street would have been Ms. Dunne’s first real estate purchase, she said in the video. She had visited with her boyfriend, Paul Skenes, the star Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher, who, like her, was an athlete at Louisiana State University, where she made millions through endorsement deals. Ms. Dunne’s representatives and the building’s management office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The apartment, with two bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, is still listed, priced at $1,595,000.Credit… DD-reps | Celeste Godoy and Dylan Hoffman

Under the co-op structure, boards tend to have lots of power, more than those of condos. They have the right to turn down any applicant, as long as it’s not for reasons that are discriminatory or have to do with self-dealing from a board member.

The board approval process can be complicated and time-consuming. In addition to bank statements and tax forms, boards may also ask for several letters of recommendation and landlord references. Even after all of that vetting, a prospective tenant still might have to go through rounds of interviews with board members.

Some of the city’s most famous, storied co-ops are run by old-money New Yorkers who often don’t want younger, newer applicants, even those who appear financially fit.

Oftentimes, fame can be a red flag for an applicant. “The building doesn’t want a lot of paparazzi,” said Penny Toepfer, a broker with Compass. Fans or photographers showing up outside the building are a concern for the other residents’ quality of life, Ms. Toepfer said.

“Sometimes rejections are not about someone’s wealth and not something that a person who is outside of the co-op world can understand fairly,” she said. “New York City is a very different real estate experience.”

The two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom apartment that Ms. Dunne had applied for is still on the market, priced at $1,595,000. Babe Ruth first moved to the building in 1929, a plaque outside that explains his baseball legacy states. “Own a piece of New York City sports history,” the listing says.

In her video, Ms. Dunne said that she had already found an interior designer for the space. “I didn’t wanna bring my college furniture to Babe Ruth’s apartment — that would be, like, criminal,” Ms. Dunne said.

Ms. Dunne herself recognized that her social media following — or where she went to college — could’ve hurt her application. “For all I know, they could’ve been Alabama fans and I went to L.S.U., like, I have no clue,” she said, referring to those schools’ rivalry. “Maybe they didn’t want a public figure living there.”

In May, Ms. Dunne had prematurely posted on Instagram that she had “bought a nyc apt” in a video of her skipping on the beach. The New York Post reported that an anonymous building resident said that the post had upset the board.

Lisa Taubes, a real estate agent who has placed clients in the same building, said the news shocked her.

“From my experience, the board was wonderful,” said Ms. Taubes, who sold units there in 2022 and 2024. Both times, she said, “it was smooth sailing.”

These days, stuffy co-op boards turning down a tenant for non-financial reasons is rarer and “very old-school,” Ms. Taubes said. After she saw Ms. Dunne’s rejection, she reached out to her on Instagram, offering to chat, asking if she had an agent representing her and sharing that she was surprised because she thought the board was “open-minded.”

Ms. Dunne’s post on TikTok raked in over 200,000 likes, as of Thursday. The ordeal, now very public, can affect the future sale of the unit and the building’s overall reputation.

“It’s one of my favorite buildings in the city,” Ms. Taubes said. “Now, I may not show it as much because it would really concern me. And my first question, as a buyer’s agent to the listing agent, is, ‘What’s going on with the board?’”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Anna Kodé writes about design and culture for the Real Estate section of The Times.

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