Purchased last in 2011 for $9 million, a $2 million renovation put new luster on 19-foot-wide townhouse, yet allowed it to retain its grand style and its architectural and design heritage. Built by prolific NYC builder Thomas Kilpatrick in 1910, it’s located in the landmarked Treadwell Farm Historic District.
Eleanor Had an Apartment in the Building
The building’s allure is embellished by some U.S. Presidential history, since Eleanor Roosevelt once called the address home. In her “My Day” newspaper diary entry in 1953, the former First Lady described her pleasure at securing an apartment once contained in the townhouse.
“I went back to the country on Friday afternoon in time to greet some friends who were coming to spend the weekend. Dining on the porch was a pleasant relief after the heat of New York. Everything in my New York apartment is more or less upside down, for the packers are coming on Monday to move my belongings to my new little apartment on East 62nd Street.
“I have been in the Park Sheraton Hotel so long that I hated to tear myself away, but I think it will be better to have a little place where I can keep house and have my dogs in New York with me. I have a little garden, which should make a pleasant difference, and being over on the East Side will make it easier to get to my AAUN office in the Carnegie Endowment Building on East 46th Street, opposite the U.N.”
Since Eleanor’s departure, the five-story home has changed hands and is now owned by investor Charles Ueng. The renovation done since 2011 was in an effort to retain plenty of historical details, including gorgeous wood paneling, arched doorways, marble mantles and flooring, and six wood-burning fireplaces.
The five-story townhouse has 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms over 5,200-square feet and includes several entertaining spaces including a library, formal living room and wet bars, and a backyard garden complete with a stone fountain — which is a part of the dwelling that Roosevelt appreciated (below).
There are also the modern amenities, including a full-service elevator, multi-zone air conditioning, and an updated security system, all while retaining the grandeur of its past. Barbara Evans Butler and Cian Connor at Stribling are the sellers agents. The pair note that during Roosevelt’s tenure there from 1953 to 1958, she “entertained the best and the brightest including Indira Gandhi, Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy.”
Roosevelt was no stranger to this neighborhood, having spent part of her childhood at 54 East 61st Street and, later, at 49 East 65th Street — the townhouse built for Franklin Delano Roosevelt by his mother to accommodate her newly married son in 1908. The East 65th Street home was the Roosevelt’s New York base until his mother’s death in 1941. After that, the FDR home on East 65th was sold to Hunter College.