In 2014, Dana Lowey Luttway could barely step foot through the front door of the century-old, Renaissance Revival townhouse her company had recently purchased on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for $6.55 million.
"You couldn’t go into this thing without fear of falling through the planks," recalled Ms. Lowey Luttway, chief executive and president of Holliswood Development, the company that took on a years-long restoration of one of the most dilapidated buildings in the otherwise pristine neighborhood and is now selling the newly finished home for $17.6 million.
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"Rats, mold—you name it. It was repulsive," she said. Her contractor had to go into the home on West 76th Street with tape on the floor to pinpoint where one could step safely without "falling through to your death."
It took the candid developer two-to-five months just to stabilize the structure, which also had a massive hole where there should have been a roof that let in a menagerie of pigeons on the upper floors.
The home has been vacant since at least the 1970s, when it was bought through a government sale for $5,000, according to property records. The owners reportedly planned to restore the home, but never did, and it continued to deteriorate.
In contrast to the carefully maintained environs of the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District, decades of neglect had turned this technically landmarked property into the neighborhood eyesore. The crumbling front stoop attracted kids with spray cans. Efforts to keep out vandals led to an unsightly chain-link fence and later a plywood barricade to match the boarded windows with a stern warning to trespassers.
The front of the building in May 2009
Google Maps"I would have been terrified to live near it," Ms. Lowey Luttway said, for fear it would collapse.
The invasion of pests at 118 West 76th St. even spilled over to its neighbors, including a synagogue two doors down.
Three years later and Ms. Lowey Luttway and her team are now eager to welcome the building’s formerly irate neighbors and show off their state-of-the-art, modern restoration.
Holliswood replaced the crumbling brick at the back of the house with a 22-foot, double-height window to flood the south side of the home with natural light. The once dingy, graffitied stoop and crumbling ornamentation is now pristine and restored to landmark specifications, including a sandstone lion guarding the cellar entrance, Ms. Lowey Luttway said.
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By finishing the cellar level and adding a skylight to bring in more light from the garden, developers transformed the house into seven levels with an elevator and 8,500 square feet of space, according to the listing with Michael Sieger of Sotheby’s International real estate.
The kitchen has a double oven and Carrara marble countertops. The parlor level has a fireplace, wide plank wood flooring and a dramatic glass window at the southern wall.
There’s also a fireplace and a private office in the master suite, four bedrooms on the next two levels and a so-called "penthouse" entertaining area with a wet bar, city views and access to the roof deck.
"I’m a developer of brownstones who lives in brownstones. I know how brownstones are used," Ms. Lowey Luttway said. "The point of having houses like this it to fill them with kids and friends."