Listing of the Day
Location: Upper East Side, Manhattan
Price: $28 million
The owners of an extra-wide townhouse on East 81st Street were happily raising their children in the city, but space was becoming a problem. The house had become a neighborhood hangout for their children’s friends, and a warm chaos was always vibrating off the walls.
"It was a real family house," said listing agent Leighton Candler, "the place where all the kids wanted to go hang out after school. And the owners liked it like that."
And yet they assumed a move out of the city was inevitable in order to give their children and guests access to things like a pool, a game room, and space to run around. But their reluctance to go paid off when the house directly behind theirs, located on 80th Street, went on the market. They snatched it up and quickly went to work transforming it into the guesthouse of their dreams, which now features five bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, along with a game room, a ballet/yoga studio, a fitness room, an atrium, and two rooftop terraces. There’s also a pool in its backyard.
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The big, close-knit family was able to get the weekend-in-the-country lifestyle right in the city. "But without the traffic," Ms. Candler said. Running back and forth between the two historic 19th-century townhouses and the 74-foot two-tiered garden, the almost 10,000-square-foot compound could easily make you forget you’re in the most densely populated city in the U.S.
The Stats
The "Front House" has five bedrooms, four full bathrooms and one partial bathroom, all of which are spread over four floors. The "Back House" has five bedrooms, three-and-a -half bathrooms, and is five stories high.
In total, the houses share 2,000 square feet of outdoor living space: there are two terraces, a balcony, a covered loggia overlooking the pool, and the 74-foot two-tiered landscaped garden that is home to the Swim Jet heated pool.
The entire compound clocks in at around 10,000 square feet.
Amenities
There’s a Swim Jet outdoor heated swimming pool, a yoga/ballet studio, a spa, a fitness room, a sauna and steam room, a game room, two laundry rooms, a covered loggia overlooking the pool, an atrium, two rooftop terraces, balconies, central air in both homes, and a state-of-the-art security system with video surveillance throughout the property.
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Talking Point
The house has been featured on CNBC’s "Secret Lives of the Super Rich."
Neighborhood Notes
The block where the Front House is located is known for its particularly wide townhouses. (It’s where Madonna found her double-wide home.)
Listing Agents: Leighton Candler and Melinda Dubow, Corcoran Group Real Estate
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