The four-story townhouse at 265 West 139th Street, which just hit the market asking $3.7 million, packs a whole lot of history in its relatively compact frame. The home was built around 1891 and is the work of OG st architects McKim, Mead & White, though the listing claims Stanford White as the architect of record.
It’s one of the nearly 150 homes included in the St. Nicholas Historic District, which was created in 1967 and praised as “ a striking example of overall city planning at its best” by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. (You may know it better as Striver’s Row, home to luminaries like politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr., for whom nearby Seventh Avenue was renamed, and composer W.C. Handy.)
And it has a celebrity pedigree to boot: Bob Dylan owned the home for 14 years before selling to its current owners in 2000. They purchased the house from the folk icon for just $560,000, but a careful restoration of its original 19th-century details—wainscoting, gorgeous wooden millwork and columns, decorative fireplace mantels, and the like—brought it back to its vintage glory.
But because this is 2017, there are also modern conveniences: The kitchen is positively enormous and comes with a wine fridge and high-end appliances; the back patio has been revamped as a comfortable gathering place. It also has five bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a formal parlor and dining room, and all of the striking details you’d expect from a home designed by one of America’s legendary architecture firms.
Though the price for this home is higher than what we typically see in Harlem, it’s not quite a record-breaker: A nearby townhouse listed in November for $4 million could—if it sells for that price—become the area’s priciest sale.
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