UPDATED, 12:51 p.m., May 17: Hollywood star and Scientology adherent Tom Cruise has long been associated with the townhouse at 42 West 12th Street, and now the home has hit the market for $28 million, StreetEasy shows.
Kyle Blackmon, a senior vice president at Brown Harris Stevens, has the listing for the 8,300-square-foot, 21-foot wide brownstone, located between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
When the property last traded hands for $15.1 million in 2009, the buyer’s identity was masked by an LLC, public records show. But press reports have pegged Cruise as the buyer, and the home was reportedly one of the properties at issue in his divorce from wife Katie Holmes. Shortly after the couple announced their split in July 2012, Holmes and the couple’s daughter, Suri, moved into a rental at the Chelsea Mercantile at 252 Seventh Avenue.
However, a spokesperson for Brown Harris Stevens insisted that the townhouse does not, in fact, belong to the actor.
“The owner of 42 West 12th Street is not Tom Cruise nor any entity related to him,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The seller is a private individual who deserves to have their privacy respected and as such Brown Harris Stevens will not provide any information regarding the owner.”
Fresh off a highly-publicized divorce, Cruise does appear to be making real estate moves.
In February, Cruise signed a $3 million contract to sell his 2,200-square-foot condo at the American Felt Building at 114 East 13th Street, as The Real Deal reported. The off-market deal closed in April, and the buyers were two individuals who owned a penthouse in the building, according to city records. Cruise purchased the unit in 1984, shortly after appearing in “Risky Business,” the role that catapulted him to stardom.
At the time, a source close to Cruise told The Real Deal that he was in the market for a home with a garage to avoid unwanted media attention. Shortly after the divorce became public, he reportedly contacted New York City real estate agents to find a more private home in Westchester or Connecticut.
The house, which dates to 1860, was previously composed of an owner’s triplex and five rental units, according to a previous listing. But the six-story building underwent a renovation at the hands of architect Steven Harris before the 2009 sale.
The home now includes a hydraulic elevator, seven fireplaces, a humidification system, a “Japanese soak tub” on the roof, a built-in Espresso machine, a finished basement with a gym, a garden-level office with a wet bar that “could easily function as a staff apartment or in-law suite,” and 2,000 square feet of outdoor space split between five terraces, says the most recent listing, first spotted by the Real Estalker.
Cruise would not be the first celebrity to live on the block, which was part of a swath of land owned by former New York City Mayor Ambrose Kingsland. In the past, this strip of West 12th Street has housed rock star Jimi Hendrix and Winfield Scott, a U.S. general and presidential candidate, according to a previous listing.
An attorney listed on the LLC’s deed did not immediately return a request for comment. A request for comment through Cruise’s website was not immediately returned, and Holmes could not be reached.