The Greek Revival townhouse at 125 West 11th Street has long been a haven for artists. Daniel Chester French, a sculptor best known for designing the statue of Lincoln in the memorial in Washington, moved there in the late 1880s, and it was also home to Valerie Bettis, the modern dancer and choreographer who worked with stars like Rita Hayworth.
Since late 1957, the Greenwich Village house, erected in 1849 between Seventh Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, has been in the Fonseca family. The Uruguayan sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca and Elizabeth Kaplan Fonseca, a painter, raised their four children there, among them, the author Isabel Fonseca, whose books include “Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey.” (Two sons were also accomplished artists and their oldest daughter a clothing designer.)
“Interesting how few owners the house has had in its entire life,” Ms. Fonseca said, explaining in an email that the home, bought from Ms. Bettis, had been a wedding gift to her parents from her maternal grandfather. “We four children and the grandchildren were lucky to have the house as a constant in our lives, even when we grew up and moved away.”
With the death of Ms. Kaplan Fonseca in late 2022 at age 93, the townhouse is poised to receive another owner. It is on the market, through her estate, for the first time in nearly 67 years, with an asking price of $25 million, according to the listing broker, David Kornmeier of Brown Harris Stevens. Annual property taxes are $53,459.
The painted brick and limestone structure — six stories high and 22.3 feet wide, with a classic brownstone stoop — encompasses 7,878 square feet. It has six bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. There are a total of 805 square feet of exterior space as well, including two terraces, a rear patio and a front yard enclosed by a wrought-iron gate.
Over the years, the house underwent numerous iterations, according to Ms. Fonseca. A studio became a living room area, staircases were moved, floors added. The décor was equally fluid, with a shifting mix of eclectic furnishings and artwork, as well as thrift-store and found items. (Ms. Fonseca calls the current aesthetic, which is staged, the best: “Simple, clean and open, with pale floors and lots and lots of natural light.”)
The home’s main entrance is on the parlor level. The front stoop leads to a vestibule into an open area that contains a living room with a wood-burning fireplace, one of three, along with a dining space and a newly renovated eat-in kitchen outfitted with custom wood cabinetry, marble countertops and a breakfast bar. Off the kitchen is a powder room.
Just below is the garden floor, which can also be entered through two separate wrought-iron doors outside. This grand level has a sitting area with a fireplace, an extra-large studio/entertainment room, also with a fireplace, and a loft with a skylight that is reachable via spiral staircase. French doors lead out to a 22-by-7-foot patio. And there is also a kitchenette, laundry area and a full bathroom. The cellar level provides storage space.
Bedrooms are upstairs. On the third floor are two sizable bedrooms, which share a dressing room and bathroom. Encompassing the fourth is the primary bedroom suite, where there is a spacious dressing room that could be converted into an additional bedroom or a home office. The bathroom has a double marble vanity and separate soaking tub, and there is another washer and dryer off the staircase landing.
On the fifth floor is a study area off the landing and two more well-proportioned bedrooms, one of which opens to a 22-by-5-foot terrace. Each shares a bathroom. The top level, with a 22-by-10-foot terrace that provides scenic cityscape views, has a spacious studio/bedroom and a full bathroom.
There are high ceilings throughout — the ones in the ground-level studio reach 30 feet — oak floors and some original moldings. In the studio, which has its original (painted) wood paneling, “there are pieces of the Daniel Chester French mantles that we salvaged, reconfigured as a stone bench in front of the fireplace,” Ms. Fonseca said. “Nice to have something from him.”
Both an elevator and staircase connect all six floors.
Ms. Fonseca, who splits her time between London and Lake Worth, Fla., has many fond memories of the home, especially around the holidays. “We always had an enormous tree in the studio,” she said. “One year, in the 1970s, the tree was suspended from the rafters, fairy lights dancing around the room like a disco ball.”
“We put on plays and dance performances in that room,” she added. “It’s such a great space, better than a backyard because you could use it all year.”
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