If You've Got $65 Million And A Robber Barron Itch To Scratch, This Midtown Mansion's Got Your Name Written All Over It
In the market for a new pad? Passed on Bill Ackman's Mona Lisa In The Sky and that Brooklyn couple's 11,000-square foot nightmare, not because they wouldn't be lovely places to live but because you're looking for something a little more...Gilded Age-esque? Want to tell guests, "If these walls could talk, they'd say 'John Pierpont Morgan' was here"? Have no problem living on West 54th Street? Then consider today your lucky day.
On West 54th Street, two limestone-and-brick homes built [in 1898] by the architecture firm McKim, Mead & White for James J. Goodwin, a cousin and business partner of financier J. Pierpont Morgan, are about to go on the market as a single $65 million listing. Brokers are positioning the property, known as the James J. Goodwin residence, as a low-rise, more human-scale alternative to the high-price megatowers under development in the area. Its 50-foot-wide property at 9-11 W. 54th St., across from the Museum of Modern Art, could be transformed back into a 22,500-square-foot single-family home and one of the largest mansions in Manhattan. Only a handful of mansions in the borough are wider, city tax records show. It is a landmark building, and many of its interior rooms, as well as the entry and staircase, with richly carved details, have been restored to their original grandeur after a period of disrepair when it served as a prep school.
The place might not come with waterfall showerheads or a fully wired for surround sound system but it does have a few places to stash your most precious items that nobody but nobody is getting into.
The houses, now combined, also come with an amenity that might enhance its appeal for a financial mogul: safes. One, a walk-in safe for the family silver, is located in an octagonal dining room, with the steel entry built into a wood-paneled closet door. The other is a 17-foot-deep bank vault behind a guard station with bulletproof windows.
Put in an offer today.
For Sale: a Gilded Age Mansion in Manhattan [WSJ]
Related: Brooklyn Couple Suffering In 11,000-Square-Foot Condo Needs Your Help
