Long before the tiny-home movement, there was 75½ Bedford Street, a Dutch-style gabled house wedged between two other residences in the heart of Manhattan’s West Village. A mere 9.5 feet wide, and even leaner inside, it is known as the narrowest townhouse in New York City.
Despite its slim figure, the red brick structure has housed some big personalities over the years, among them the actors Cary Grant and John Barrymore, the anthropologist Margaret Mead and the cartoonist William Steig. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay lived in the house in 1923 and 1924, during which time she wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver,” as affirmed by a plaque above the front door.
A celebrity in its own right, the quirky home is now ready for its next resident. It’s back on the market with a not-so-tiny $4.195 million price tag. Annual property taxes are $21,190.
“There are some people who don’t want a narrow home,” said Cortnee Glasser of Sotheby’s International Realty, the listing agent, “and there are others who will appreciate its charm and history. They would love to have a townhouse on one of the most desirable blocks in the West Village for $4.195 million.”
Built in 1873 and known as the Millay House, it stands between Commerce and Morton Streets, on what was once a carriage entryway for neighboring 77 Bedford, Greenwich Village’s oldest surviving house. In the 1920s, when Millay and her husband, Eugen Jan Boissevain, a coffee importer, lived there, it underwent several changes, including the addition of the gabled roof, Dutch doors and the creation of a writer’s studio with a skylight on the top floor. Wood casement windows were also added to each story.
Measuring around 1,000 square feet over three levels, 75½ Bedford has three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and four wood-burning fireplaces, including one in the bathroom of the second-floor primary suite. There is also a finished basement with a sleeping area and laundry.
A small private garden off the eat-in kitchen is landscaped with boxwoods and potted flowering annuals, and accesses a larger garden shared with two neighboring homes. There are balconies off the top two bedroom floors.
Dr. Tandra Hammer, an obstetrician and gynecologist, bought the house in 2023 for $3.41 million. Her daughter, Donte Calarco, lives there most of the year.
The two are avid real estate investors. “We love the city, and we love flipping old houses,” said Ms. Calarco, a former actress and a part-time real estate agent in Camden, Maine. Dr. Hammer, whose primary residence is in Nashville, uses it mainly as a pied-à-terre. They’re now looking to buy another home in Lower Manhattan, though on just one level.
“We’re ready for our next project,” Ms. Calarco said.
Although the townhouse had been meticulously renovated by the previous owners, Ms. Calarco and Dr. Hammer continued making improvements, like updating the electrical system and renovating the closets. “We didn’t really do tons of work, we just kind of took it from there to make it more livable,” Ms. Calarco said.
They were initially drawn to the “authentic charm” of the house, she said: “There’s so much history — you could feel it.” To that end, some early architectural flourishes remain, like the wood-beam ceilings, wide-plank white oaks floors, winding staircase and Dutch doors. More recent finishes can be found in the marble bathrooms and kitchen.
People who pass by the famous skinny house, part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, also seem to feel it. “They’re outside taking pictures,” Ms. Calarco said. “Some people might see that as a negative, but I don’t. It’s just part of the character and spirit of the neighborhood.”
Andrew Berman, the director of Village Preservation, a group that focuses on architecture in Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo, would agree. “It’s really an icon of the neighborhood,” he said. “It speaks to the quirkiness and charm.”
The interior of the house has an open floor plan. Not surprisingly, it includes plenty of built-in storage and pocket doors to maximize living space. Ceiling heights range from a little over seven feet in the basement to around 12 feet to the skylight on the third floor. There is enough space to fit queen-size beds in each of the bedrooms, according to Ms. Calarco.
“It’s a queen bed house,” she said. “A king would be a little too hard to move around with.”
The post A Famous Narrow House in the West Village Listed for $4.195 Million appeared first on New York Times.
