Katharine Hepburn’s former home hits market as $27,500 rental

Katharine Hepburn’s former home at 244 East 49th Street is for rent.
The former home of actress Katharine Hepburn, who lived in a brownstone at 244 East 49th Street for some 60 years, is on the market to rent for $27,500 per month, according to listing broker Trudy Schlachter of Prudential Douglas Elliman. The most recent tenants have moved out of the four-story house between Second and Third avenues.

The iconic, Oscar-winning actress lived in the house from 1931 until the 1990s, Schlachter said. After her death in 2003, the intersection of East 49th Street and Second Avenue was renamed “Katharine Hepburn Place.”

The brownstone is located in Turtle Bay Gardens, an enclave of row houses with their gardens arranged to form a common space, with a 12-foot-wide stone path down the center and a fountain modeled after the Villa Medici in Tuscany.

Other famous residents of Turtle Bay Gardens have included composer Stephen Sondheim and Bob Dylan, noted Schlachter, who said she recently rented Dylan’s former home at 242 East 49th Street for $32,500 per month.

Hepburn’s onetime home has been gut-renovated since her time, Schlachter said, but residents can primp in the actress’ original mirrored dressing room. The apartment is unfurnished except for a few photographs of Hepburn and some of her watercolor paintings.