One of the settings for the Inez and Vinoodh portfolio "NY, NY 10021" in W's April issue is a townhouse on East 70th Street owned by Georges and Lois de Menil. Like everything else in the shoot, the house is for sale. We recently took a closer look at the property with Louise Beit, of Sotheby's International Realty, to find out just what $28 million buys you on one of Manhattan's most prized blocks on the Upper East Side, between Park and Lexington Avenues, where Paul Mellon once lived.
Ms. Beit, who sold Woody Allen his house a few years back and recently brokered Madonna's purchase of a 40-foot townhouse on East 81st Street, pointed out the charms of the de Menil's family home. The six-story house, built in 1903, has an English basement--which in case you don't have one is a kitchen below the main floor, with staff quarters and private entrance--in addition to a warming kitchen off the ample dining room, with its floor to ceiling French doors and stairs leading to a garden created by Robert Zion, the designer of Paley Park in midtown.
The 20-foot wide house also boasts 16 rooms, 9 bedrooms, 9 baths ("all en suite, that's very important," notes Ms. Beit), 8 fireplaces and an elevator in its 10,000 square feet of space. An elegant oval staircase winds its way up to the top and there's also a drawing room with Louis XV paneling, a Georgian library, and of course, a basement wine cellar. And although there's another house right next door, there are no shared walls, giving the house "a life-giving silence," says Ms. Beit, "not a dead silence."
See the listing at Sotheby's International Realty.
House photos: Denis Vlasov
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