Bob Dylan’s former NYC townhouse asks $3M — with design by a famed Gilded Age architect
Find “Shelter From the Storm” in this historic townhouse that just listed for sale.
A handsome Upper Manhattan property that Bob Dylan once called home has listed for $3 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The megastar musician lived in the five-story residence, designed by an iconic Gilded Age architect, for 14 years until 2000.
The “Like a Rolling Stone” singer arrived in New York City from Minnesota in the 1960s.
Dylan initially lived in a third-floor Greenwich Village walkup. That apartment, and its entire building, also listed for sale in July for $8.25 million.
Less than three decades after arriving in the Big Apple and becoming a household name, Dylan bought himself a home in Harlem. The neighborhood’s famed jazz and blues traditions inspired Dylan throughout his career.
The Nobel Prize-winning songwriter spent years at the 4,500-square-foot property, but there’s little to show for it beyond a deed. The intensely private singer lived a quiet life in the townhome-lined community, a historic district called Strivers’ Row.
The two-block tract is lined with historic townhouses, but Dylan’s former home comes with a special degree of architectural cachet. It was designed by the prolific Gilded Age architect Stanford White, whose Renaissance Revival-style defined the luxury buildings of his era.
The spacious property includes a 19-foot salon, a large eat-in kitchen and a massive parlor floor.
The well-preserved five-bedroom’s classical details, like period moldings, hardwood floors, pocket doors and soaring ceilings, are balanced out by the modern luxuries of Gaggenau appliances and heated floors.
Colin Montgomery and Stan Ponte of Sotheby’s International Realty hold the listing.
The current owners of the townhome, Isam Salah and Elaina Richardson, purchased it for $3.17 million in 2018, according to city records. Salah, a retired attorney, and Richardson, the former editor in chief of Elle magazine, are selling to focus on their lives upstate, the Journal reported. Richardson runs a nonprofit artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs.
Their home’s discounted sale price, the pair told the Journal, meets the market where it’s at. Interest in high-end Harlem townhomes, either as family homes or portfolio investments, has lagged since the pandemic.
But the married couple told the Journal that the memories created in their townhome make up for the loss. They purchased the home in part because they admired its well-preserved details, including an original range stove and a 4-foot-tall safe, which they use as a bar.
The connection to Dylan is not lost on the couple, however. Richardson told the Journal that small tour groups occasionally stop outside the home, but said that the dedicated fans are pretty sedate.