Words: Izzie Price
What springs to mind when you think of the Upper West Side? We bet we can hazard a well-educated guess; do you think of glamour? Decadence? The New York of the golden age, in which autumn (or, rather, fall) leaves swirl through Central Park, the glittering streets are piled high with sparkling snow and sleekly-clad doormen are poised behind softly lit doors, ready to welcome you into a haven of marble-clad tranquillity?
If you’re thinking that an Upper West Side of this sort is relegated to fond reminiscences of a past era, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong; but this West 76th Street Townhouse can achieve the impossible. It encapsulates New York glamour to the highest degree; but it also puts a modern spin on the classical Upper West Side townhouse. The result? A jaw-dropping, flabbergastingly enviable home that’ll have real estate enthusiasts frantically combing through their bank balances to see if there’s any chance they could push the boat out and secure the home of their dreams.
Credit: Tim Waltman for Sotheby’s International Realty
Listed by Cathy Taub from Sotheby’s International Realty (East Side Manhattan Brokerage) and Ian Slater from Compass, this is a home guaranteed to make jaws ache from so long hanging open in awe. Let’s start with the important stuff: this townhouse is huge. And when we say huge, we mean huge. It’s no secret that New York real estate doesn’t tend to go in hard on space; so a 22-feet wide townhouse, spread over seven stories with an interior of 11,300 square feet, is a townhouse virtually unheard of when it comes to Manhattan real estate.
It would be easy to assume that space — an enormous rarity in Manhattan — has been prioritised to the detriment of quality. Not so. The house has a full extension that extends all the way into an excavated cellar level; and the amenities will continue to take your breath away as you wander around, open-mouthed and slack-jawed. It clocks in at six bedrooms, six bathrooms and three powder rooms — but all that space is there for a reason. Have you ever wanted to live in a home with a double-height basketball court? Now’s the time.
The court is located in the cellar, together with a full fitness centre, game room and temperature-controlled wine storage room. Thanks to the extensive excavation, completed just last year, the cellar is not the small, dark area one would usually associate with subterranean levels; think soaring ceilings and space, space and more space.
The soaring ceilings continue throughout the rest of the property; in fact, the lofty ceiling heights are a significant defining feature. Crossing over the stoop and into the entry parlour, guests will be met with over 80 feet of depth: depth that gives way to a wet bar and dining space for more than twenty lucky individuals. The wet bars continue (in the office, for instance, with its treeline views over West 76th Street); and the garden-level kitchen, mud room and double baths clad in luxurious custom stone are among the other talking points that’ll get guests’ tongues wagging and property-envy levels soaring higher than those lofty ceilings.
The notable space isn’t limited to the interior, either. If you opted to take the elevator all the way up to the rooftop (something we’d heartily recommend), you’d find a full outdoor kitchen — complete with dining space for 12, a self-irrigating garden system — and views over Midtown and the iconic, world-famous San Remo building. In fact, you’d be lucky to get any cooking done at all — it would be so hard to take your eyes off the view that you could lose hours and hours gazing out over Manhattan. (Then again, that doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend your time.)
The golden era of New York seems like a far-flung, lost age. But when it comes to this property, you’ll be simultaneously transported back to a bygone era of Upper West Side glamour, and forward to futuristic levels of modernity, comfort and sleek interior decoration. You’ll find the property reigning supreme slap bang in the middle of the block: just look out for that one-of-a-kind copper clad rounded bay window, and you’ll know you’ve found your way home.
Wondering how you’d decorate your enormous townhouse? Well, these are the prints every aspiring entrepreneur should own…
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