For decades, a silent door on East 64th Street led to one of the busiest private rooms in Manhattan. Guests in attendance included Bob Hope, actor and television host Alan Thicke, singer Clint Holmes and former New York City Mayor David Dinkins. Liza Minnelli celebrated her engagement there. Many evenings brought together an even wider circle of personalities from the world of real estate, theater and the city’s art, who came for dinners often accompanied by live music and, on occasion, a recording session.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Corcoran / The James Weiss
All of this was orchestrated by Kenneth Laub, a New York commercial real estate veteran who transformed his home into a work lounge and now devotes himself to writing music. About 35 years after moving in, Laub decided to sell and trade for something more manageable, freeing up his time to compose. The house is listed for $17 million with the The James Weiss Team at Corcoran, which launched a dedicated site for that.
Neighbors know the place as Versailles Townhouse, and it ranks among the most theatrical private residences on the Upper East Side. What strikes anyone who enters is less an isolated object than the size of the house. It measures nearly 90 feet from entrance to rear wall, an interior almost double the length of the standard 50-foot houses lining the street, a scale which was only possible because the building predates the city’s zoning code. A homeowner standing in front of the bookcase can see clearly across the middle of the house to its farthest room, an uninterrupted run that no architect could legally lay out on that block today.
The house first took shape in 1872 under the direction of architect John G. Prague, and a later renovation by R.D. Graham gave it the Georgian Revival character it bears today. Inside, designer Ronald Bricke assembled pieces that borrow freely through times and traditions. Visitors enter through a foyer covered in floral wallpaper, pass arched openings and marble underfoot, and ascend a staircase that traverses the five floors of the approximately 8,000-square-foot home. The limestone and brick facade was brought back to life by a craftsman who had also contributed to the restoration of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine.
The living room level is the showcase of the house, a stretch of five rooms that also serves as a gallery. The bar sits on an antique Pusey wood paneled floor and is topped with a Belle Epoque American walnut counter, while two stories above, an atrium ceiling of Lalique glass represents the cosmos and sends colorful light into the room when the sun is out. The adjoining music room, designed especially by Laub for the performance, houses a grand piano and walls adorned with reproductions of the Fragonard panels preserved at the Frick. In the dining room hangs a Provencal tapestry from the 1750s, since restored by specialists from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the library retains the pine paneling. arranged during the construction of the house.
The content compete with architecture. According to one estimate, the residence contains approximately $3.5 worth a million antiques and decorative pieces, all under ceilings reaching 12.5 feet. The living room chandeliers alone are valued at more than $1 million, and four other antique examples, of French, Venetian, and Russian origin and dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, hang in other rooms.
The upper level was designed for large-scale entertaining. Laub streamed audio throughout the floor and gave it room for up to 150 guests, with microphones and recording facilities, so that an ordinary gathering could become a concert that didn’t have to disappear once the night was over. It is on this stage that the names which open this article have appeared, season after season.
Higher up, the house offers five bedrooms, four of which have private bathrooms, as well as eight fireplaces and an elevator that serves each floor. The most memorable space, however, is outdoors. The fourth-floor patio is finished in bluestone and green marble and heated by a heating element placed beneath the surface, melting the snow as it falls and allowing Laub to grill outdoors in the dead of winter. THE the view extends over the rooftops of 64th and 65th streets, including the house that belonged to David Rockefeller.
There is also a second deed available to the right buyer. Next door, 165 East 64th Street has been put up for sale for $18.5 million, raising the unusual prospect of buying both and merging them into one oversized residence, a move Madonna and Michael Bloomberg pulled off in that same neighborhood. Two large homes side by side, both for sale at the same time, is a coincidence that the Upper East Side rarely produces.
The listing surfaces just as buyers are rediscovering the private townhouse, after years of gravitating toward Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
