Just off Park Avenue, there’s a townhouse that’s quietly changed hands over the decades. One of its more notable owners was interior designer Geoffrey Bradfield, who called it home for a time. Now, freshly restored, the five-story townhouse at 116 East 61st Street is on the market for just under $15 million. Don’t let the slim, 18.5-foot width fool you—there’s roughly 5,750 square feet inside, plus three separate levels of outdoor space.
Built in 1869, it was converted into two apartments in 1929, when the stoop was removed in favor of a garden-level entrance. In the 1960s, British designer Nicholas Haslam lived here with Rockefeller heir Jimmy Davison, in a building that also housed a young Woody Allen. Decorator Billy Baldwin, whose clients included Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis, took over the apartment from Davison in 1964. Bradfield bought the house decades later and gave it the elegant white facade it wears today, along with a full remodel, before selling it in 2015, according to Mansion Global.
Behind a gated entry, the garden level opens into a kitchen finished with French limestone floors and Venetian plaster walls. A breakfast booth and island seating anchor the room, with pocket doors that open for a party or close for a quiet dinner. Past the kitchen, a dining room with a working fireplace leads through three French doors to a south-facing garden. “It’s a phenomenal house for entertaining,” says listing agent, John Carbone, noting that the pocket doors let catering staff move between the kitchen, dining room and garden without guests ever needing to pass through the kitchen.
On the parlor floor, the living room stretches to 12-foot ceilings, neoclassical moldings and a second fireplace. Across the landing there’s a library with built-in banquettes and a wet bar—the kind of room where the night just tends to end up. Then the whole third floor is the primary suite, fireplace and sleek marble bathroom.
John Carbone of Sotheby’s International Realty represents the listing.
