What exactly is an “Anglo-Italianate" home?

It's this mansion-like townhouse located on Stuyvesant Square Park, according to CORE, which lists the massive residence at 243 E. 17th St. for $15 million.

What does $15 million get you?

- A 28-foot wide home dating back to the 1850s.

- Five stories in 6,494 square feet, with an additional 1,950 square feet on the lower level, or five-bedrooms, with a four-story owner's residence and two one-bedroom units.

- An elevator, two washer/dryers and five fireplaces.

- A music room, media room and front garden.

- Plus a grand winding staircase and private terrace for the master suite.

Though billed as a townhouse, CORE broker Emily Beare, describes the Gramercy home as "one of the very few grand mansions located downtown."

"It exudes a certain stately elegance that’s been preserved throughout the years. There’s really nothing else like it.” she said.

The photos of the inside will truly make you forget that New York City is full of small, cramped apartments, and does feature actual homes that would even make suburbanites jealous. Enjoy your escape.

The childhood school of Martin Scorsese is being transformed into a luxurious townhouse listed for $25,000,000 with CORE. Many believe it’s there at the school where he wrote his first stories. Located at 32 Prince Street in the historic neighborhood of Nolita in Manhattan, the five-story property has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, three bathrooms, a cellar and a private elevator.

The school, transformed by Marvel Architects, has nevertheless kept its original structure and original features including high ceilings, paneled doors, oak flooring, moldings and grand fireplaces.

A five-level 1825 townhouse in Nolita is on the market for $25 million.

Stats 7 Bedrooms 7 Baths 3 Half Baths 8,069 sq. ft. $25 million

Once the home of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral School and Convent, where Academy Award–winning director Martin Scorsese studied as a boy, this New York landmark has been transformed into a residential townhouse by Marvel Architects as part of the new Residences at Prince. The Federal-meets-Greek-Revival style residence, which still boasts its original 1825 façade, is set to be completed in fall 2016, in Nolita’s most historic section. Within its storied walls, the townhouse showcases five levels of living space with stunning details, such as high ceilings, five-inch-wide oak plank flooring, paneled doors, period-style moldings, and three fireplaces. An elevator provides easy access to each floor. With windows on three sides, the home boasts views of the cloistered cathedral and a private garden. Highlights include an exquisite parlor floor with a formal living room, dining room, and curved staircase. There’s a large open kitchen and casual dining room that leads to a bi-level garden with an outdoor kitchen. The master bedroom suite is located on its own floor with a private study and spalike bath, while a family room and playroom can be found on the top two floors.

Our property at 243 East 17th Street is an exceptional 28-foot wide, elevator, Anglo-Italianate townhouse on Stuyvesant Square Park. This elegant building has a three bay facade, round-arched doors and windows, a lovely foliate patterned cast-iron balcony that runs the width of the edifice and a paneled cornice. Call us today to schedule a showing, 212-612-9681!

#TownhouseTuesday #Townhouse#Gramercy #GramercyPark#SevenBedroom #FiveandaHalfBaths#NYC #NewYorkCity #CORE#CORERealEstate #RealEstate#NYRealEstate #NYCRealEstate#Brownstone #Manhattan| http://my-disclosur.es/u6uy5| | bit.ly/243East17th

Did you know that the average width of a townhouse in Manhattans East side is 19.1 feet while on the west side it's 19.7 feet? Width is considered one of the best markers of value, so townhouses need not to follow any New Years resolution diets! #TownhouseTuesday #CORE #CORERealEstate #Townhouse #NYCTownhouse #Manhattan #Brooklyn #NYC #NewYorkCity | http://my-disclosur.es/u6uy5O

What better way to kick off Townhouse Tuesday than to present our listing 38 Prince? This sensitively transformed home presents a rare opportunity to own a landmark piece of property that was once the west wing of Old Saint Patrick's School and Convent! #TownhouseTuesday #PatrickLillyTeam #CORE #CORERealEstate #Townhouse #Manhattan #NYC #NewYorkCity #Nolita | http://my-disclosur.es/u6uy5O

Think you’ve seen everything that’s out there to buy? Thankfully in New York there’s always more beautiful apartments to drool over/purchase (if you’re lucky). Take a look at these lovely properties that just hit the market.

Address: 38 Prince Street

Price: $25,000,000

Type/Size: Townhouse; 8,069 square feet; seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms

An entire floor of this five-story townhouse is devoted to entertaining (there’s even a music room).

The home was formerly the west wing of the Old Saint Patrick’s School and Convent.

November 20, 2015

New Renders Reveal Interiors for $25M Nolita Townhouse

Here's what we know so far about the school-to-condo conversion happening at 34 Prince Streetknown as "The Residences at Prince": The former St. Patrick's Old Cathedral School will be transformedinto nine luxury homes (seven condos and two townhouses, designed by Marvel Architects, now), all of whichwill be "unique" and pricey (duh). Exterior renderings have already made the rounds, but the interiorshave been a mystery; and while we still don't know what those condos are going to look like, theserenderings show the inside for one of the development's townhouses, which will hit the market todayfor $25 million. The five-story home, which sits on the Prince Street side of the block-long project, is asover-the-top as previous reports have suggested: It'll span 10,000 square feet, with two gardens (in thefront and back), three working fireplaces, and even an elevator. The floor plans below show the layout ofthe massive house, which has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, an ornate staircase, a study, and a more then 1,000 square foot cellar.

October 28, 2015 | New York Post

$15 MILLION, 243 EAST 17TH STREET

The Italians and Brits haven’t always gotten along so great (see: Henry VIII, World War II, World Cup 2014, et al.). But the two nations put all that ugliness behind them to meld together and stylize this 28-foot-wide Anglo-Italianate townhouse at Stuyvesant Square Park.

SPECS AND THE CITY: 6,494 square feet, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, Gramercy

PERKS: A three-bay facade, five stories, 16-foot ceilings on the parlor floor, a “grand winding” staircase, five fireplaces, arched doorways, skylights and original moldings, Clive Christian eat-in kitchen with limestone countertops, “high-end” appliances, a separate office, direct access to the “charming” garden, and a master bedroom with private terrace.

WHAT’S THE CATCH? The music room could encourage you or yours to get the old band back together.

THE X-FACTOR: A cast-iron balcony running “the width of the edifice” will tempt you to pretend like you’re the pope addressing Saint Peter’s Square.

CONTACT: Emily Beare and Patrick V. Lilly, Core, 212-726-0786 and 212-612-9681

October 14, 2015 | BrickUnderground

Of all the real estate trophies to hold in Manhattan, for many, there's nothing like a tried-and-true townhouse. First, there's the scarcity: Only a few hundred of them are ever on the market—StreetEasy counts about 350 available as of this writing—and they're, yes, expensive. But some trophies are shinier than others.

Take this multi-family in Gramercy across from Stuyvesant Square, which starts by having a fairly interesting pedigree. Thomas Morton, one of the earliest developers in the city, built the house there in 1852 and lived in it, later selling it for the then-princely (and record-breaking) sum of $28,000,per the Stuyvesant Square Historic Designation Report.

This isn't the first time the house, which measures a generous 28 feet wide, has been on the market. The owner, according to the New York Daily News, is soap opera star Noelle Beck, who first put it up for sale for $16.995 million last year. It was pulled off the market this summer, and reappeared on StreetEasy for another go two weeks ago, this time with a price cut—it's now offered at $15 million by CORE brokers Emily Beare and Patrick Lilly.

The four-floor owner's unit is grand, with a high-ceilinged living room calling out for a party (just in time for holiday party season) and tall windows that scale nearly to the room's heights.

The staircase, it has to be said, looks tailor-made for a dramatic (soap opera) entrance, and the fireplace mantle is a conversation-starter.

The kitchen, though thoroughly modern, has been renovated—and chandeliered—to evoke old-world charm. There's a Viking stove and limestone countertops, and a separate office right off it.

And the bedroom? Again, dramatic—with another fireplace, to boot, plus a terrace. And, like all the other floors of the townhouse, it has a bay window.

The yard is no joke, either. (Once more, the party possibilities!) And there's a music room in the basement, as well as another office.

And if you're interested in playing landlord, there are two one-bedroom rentals above the owner's unit. Or, better yet, renovate the top floor so they can be folded into the rest of the building and become the one-family mansion it once was.

October 5, 2015 | CurbedNY

It's fall, y'all: The leaves are starting to turn, the weather has gotten perceptibly cooler, and if you're anything like us, you've already gotten all of your cardigans out of storage. Cooler weather also makes us think of fireplaces, one of those apartment amenities that you never really think about until there's a chill in the air and suddenly nothing seems nicer than curling up with a book in front of a roaring fire. (Maybe that's just us.) In any case, plenty of New York City apartments have the vestiges of them—elaborate mantles that have been repurposed as decorative elements, or cut-outs in exposed brick walls—but there are also plenty of units where you'll find real, honest-to-god wood-burning (or, less impressively, gas) fireplaces. Take a look at some of our favorites that recently hit the market.

This 19th-century home faces picturesque Stuyvesant Square Park (which may explain its $15 million price tag), and has five bedrooms over nearly 6,500 square feet of space. It also has five fireplaces, including one with beautiful Art Deco ornamentation that's in the dining room, near a winding staircase. And just in case the park being nearby isn't enough for you, there's a garden off the first floor.

If there's anything we've learned from our grandparents — and our many days of antiquing! — it's that the old should be cherished. So if you ever have the opportunity to purchase an older home, do it. Do it, and take care of it, and celebrate all of its intricate moldings and special details. Here to guide us through some of the most beautiful 19thcentury homes on the market is Alex Brunkhorst, LA-based real estate agent and founder of Bungalux. From a Greek Revival home with gorgeous exposed brick walls in Manhattan's West Village to a crown jewel in one of Savannah, Georgia's most beautiful historic squares, beauty awaits.

Price: $6,500,000

Location: Midtown East, NY

This almost 5,780-square-foot Murray Hill townhouse has been in the same family for almost 60 years, and houses the law practice of the current owner, as it did for his father before him.

A. Edward Major's father, also A. Edward Major, purchased this townhouse on East 38th Street in 1957 to live in and use as a base for his real estate law firm. Almost 60 years later, the junior Mr. Major lives in the property and continues to run the firm in the home's commercially zoned ground floor office, which has a private entrance.

The front office of the law firm's office is shown. Mr. Major was 3½ when he moved into the home with his family. He joined his father at the firm in 1987 and moved back into the home with his family in 1990. 'Because it was a mixed-use building, it's always been a blessing to us,' said Mr. Major. 'No matter how long my father had to work, or I had to work, we always had supper with our family,' he said.

The four floor townhouse is approximately 5,780-square feet with a total of six bedrooms, five full bathrooms and one half bathrooms spread across the ground floor office, and two duplexes that each have one-and-a-half floors, one occupied by the Majors and another by tenants. A view of the approximately 1,300-square-foot office is shown.

The home has a balcony and back patio, pictured. Mr. Major, 60, and Deirdre Major, 59, retail president of Castagna Realty Co. on Long Island, have a 29-year-old son stationed in Anchorage, Alaska with the U.S. Army. 'With the backyard and the little terrace we had, we felt we had the luxury of space [here]," Mrs. Major said.

Mr. Major said his father worked as an attorney for a bank when he left to set up his own practice in this home in his early 40s. He recalls his father paying approximately $30,000 to $35,000 for the home, a 'princely sum' in those days, he said. His father did a gut renovation of the home, taking some walls out and adding others, realigning the floor plan, redoing the stairs, putting in a new stairwell from the top floor to the roof and adding some skylights.

The living room of the tenant-occupied apartment is shown. Mr. Major said he has fond memories of being taken to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a child, both short subway rides from the home. 'Just having the luxury of being able to do that at a drop of the hat... that's one of my main memories,' he said. 'I didn't feel like I was missing anything.'

The bedroom of the tenant-occupied apartment is pictured. Mr. and Mrs. Major, married 31 years, met in the home in 1976 at an engagement party given by Mr. Major's mother for mutual friends. Mrs. Major was invited over after her future in-laws saw her portrait in the home of friends and invited her with the purpose of introducing her to their son. Growing up in Queens, 'I had dreamed of living in Manhattan' Mrs Major said. 'My father worked in Manhattan and it captured my imagination when I would go into the office with him. It seemed like an exciting place.'

Mr. Major believes the fair market value rent of the office and one of the home's duplexes could be around $7,500 a month each. The kitchen of the tenant-occupied duplex is pictured. The Mayors moved into the house in 1990 after Mr. Major's father died and his mother decided she didn't want to live in the home. While they loved their previous home in Stuyvesant Town, Mr. Major was drawn to the idea of living in his childhood home. 'It sounds trite, but it was magical to walk through the house again and see my bedroom where I grew up as a boy,' he said.

The living room of the apartment is shown. The couple did their own work on the home after moving in, redoing plumbing, wiring, adding a new furnace, resurfacing the roof and reopening the chimney to restore the two wood burning fireplaces in the building. They also repainted the home's concrete facade and repointed the sides, done in brick. Mr. Major estimates they spent approximately $300,000 to $350,000 in improvements to the home.

The main dining room is pictured. Mr. Major joined his father as a partner in his firm in 1987 and gradually took over his clients, working together for three years in the office before his father died. 'It wasn't always easy but for the most part it was a great learning experience for me,' he said. 'He had this lifetime of wisdom which he was happy to give me.' Mr. Major said he still deals with some transactions and attorneys from when his father ran the firm.

The main kitchen of the Major's duplex is pictured. The couple are selling because they would like to move to Long Island but they will miss being in the 'heart of the city,' they said. 'For me it was just a seasonal change,' said Mr. Major. 'It just seemed to be the right thing, the way our future was unfolding.'

A master bedroom is pictured. The home is decorated with antiques and family heirlooms as well as artwork, some of which survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, Mr. Major said. In rooms such as the home's parlor, which has 11½ feet ceilings, 'you can't just put a tiny little picture onto a wall,' said Mr. Major. 'You need something a good deal larger to suit the sale of the house,' he said.

The roof of the home has views of the Chrysler Building as well as the Empire State Building and offers 1,725-square-feet of buildable space for an extra floor, according to listing broker Patrick Lilly of CORE. The property was listed in March with CORE for $6.5 million.

In New York, international buyers are snubbing high-priced, high-rise condominiums and opting for historic brownstones; financial scrutiny is less stringent but snow-shoveling isn't included

Waves of international buyers are causing a sea change in Manhattan's luxury property market.

Affluent out-of-towners are starting to spurn glitzy, full-service condo buildings as prices reach upward of $90 million, opting instead to buy older townhouses, which are seen as a better value, real-estate agents say.

Brian Lewis, a broker at Halstead Property in Manhattan, says he put a historic Charlton Street townhouse on the market in the spring for $7.25 million and was inundated with inquiries from buyers in Russia, South America and Asia, many of whom planned to use the house as a pied-à-terre. "Usually when I get a call and it's a foreign buyer, I'm pulling out my new development Rolodex," says Mr. Lewis, who later lowered the price to $6.25 million. "The palate of our foreign buyers is changing before our eyes."

The city's townhouses, many of which were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, have a reputation for being difficult to maintain. In addition to regular upkeep, tasks like show-shoveling and package pickup typically fall to the homeowner. As a result, historic brownstones have largely been shunned by pied-à-terre buyers and other purchasers who don't plan to use them as a primary residence.

"People look at New York and think of modern conveniences," says Robert Dankner, of Prime Manhattan Residential. "But I have seen more of an emerging trend with buyers who don't live here full time embracing the townhouse market." He is representing a client from Switzerland who is in the process of buying a West Village townhouse for around $10.5 million.

The shift has picked up steam in recent months, says Kevin Royer, an agent at Halstead who is working with an Israeli buyer looking to purchase a townhouse in Brooklyn. "Since this summer, maybe since April, people are suddenly going crazy."

Contributing to the trend is condo boards' increasing scrutiny of buyers' finances. Many boards now ask for extensive income verification from buyers—even all-cash buyers, says Halstead agent Sarah Parsons. "It's almost like a co-op board," she says. Many of her European buyers, who aren't used to revealing financial information, are now choosing townhouses. "They don't want to disclose what they make," Ms. Parsons says.

Price per square foot and perceived investment value are the other main motivators, brokers say. "More and more, the tendency is to go toward a full townhouse purchase because they can be anonymous, and they can get all the space for a fraction of the price," says Adie Kriegstein, an agent at Core who recently represented a French family in the purchase of a townhouse on West 77th Street.

The average price per square foot of a Manhattan townhouse in the third quarter of 2013 was $1,144, compared with $1,379 for condos, according to data by Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants. At the high end of the market, the price gap widens. A condo penthouse at 15 Central Park West set a record when it closed last year for $88 million, or more than $13,000 per square foot. The priciest townhouse sale on record in the city, by contrast, is the 21,700-square-foot Harkness Mansion on the Upper East Side, which was bought by private-equity investor J. Christopher Flowers in 2006 for $53 million, or around $2,440 per square foot.

Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, points out that comparisons between new construction condos and resale townhouses are somewhat flawed, especially because brownstones don't have the doormen or views usually found in tall towers. Still, buyers have noticed the price disparity.

Ms. Kriegstein's French client, Cecile Caer, says price was the primary factor in her family's decision to opt for a townhouse. Ms. Caer, 43, says she and her husband, an advertising executive, looked at several condos, including one they liked at the Apthorp on the Upper West Side, but decided that a townhouse offered the best value and potential return on investment. They bought a 5,000-square-foot home for $5.2 million, or just over $1,000 per square foot. "We looked at the townhouse and thought: We can do a beautiful job renovating, have all the space we want and still be at about the same price as buying a

condo," says Ms. Caer. The trade-off is that the home needs a major renovation, which likely won't be completed until 2015. But she says she feels confident that for "the price you buy versus the price you can eventually sell, the townhouse was the best investment."

Ms. Caer says she doesn't yet know how much time her family will spend in Manhattan—they also have homes in France and Canada—but she plans on hiring a property manager or housekeeper to check on the home while they are away.

While condo fees in some New York buildings are thousands of dollars a month, Halstead's Ms. Parsons says hiring a property manager or part-time super can cost $200 to $500 per month. And with a proliferation of property-management firms and new technology such as virtual doormen, taking care of homes from afar is easier than ever.

That was certainly a consideration for Carsten Thoma, a 39-year-old Zurich resident who is looking to buy a multifamily townhouse in Brooklyn. Mr. Thoma, who frequently travels in his role as president of Swiss e-commerce firm Hybris Software, plans to keep one unit for his own use when he's in town, and rent out the others. He won't be in New York "a huge chunk of the year," but that doesn't bother him. "You can easily create a similar experience" to a full-service condo, he says, since there are "concierge services left and right. New York is a super services-oriented city."

Townhouses also come without the monthly common charges that condo owners pay. "We have a lot of international buyers who look at townhouses because they don't want to have to deal with maintenance fees that are very high, and you're not there," says Michelle Bourgeois, an agent at Town Residential. "You can have somebody maintain the townhouse and still come out ahead."

The new interest in townhouses has started to affect prices. Jed Garfield, head of Leslie J. Garfield Real Estate, which specializes in Manhattan townhouses, estimates that during the past two years, prices have grown about 20% per year, compared with 3% to 4% a year before the financial crisis. "The last couple of years, it's really jumped," he says.

The median sale price of a Manhattan luxury condo was $5.25 million in the third quarter, compared with $4.32 million for townhouses, according to Miller Samuel. But townhouses have shown more appreciation over the past six years, with the median price increasing 12.9%, compared with 11.1% for luxury condos. For luxury townhouses, the median sale price jumped 20.4%, from $15.2 million to $18.3 million, between 2009 and 2013.