Cabaret singer, pianist and Great American Songbook archivist Michael Feinstein and spouse Terrence Flannery have put their legendary Upper East Side home on the market, asking $17.9 million.
The price tag for the grand home, which consists of conjoined bow-front brownstones built around 1886, does not include the wall-sized Hirschfeld mural sprinkled with stars such as Fred Astaire, Liza Minnelli and Woody Allen.
The 18-room house at 143 East 63rd Street features twin staircases, seven baths, two powder rooms, eight fireplaces and a 25-foot-wide backyard complete with ivy-covered brick walls and two outdoor pagodas.
Feinstein and Flannery purchased the first half of the townhouse — No. 141 — in 2004 for just over $3 million.
“It had high ceilings and grand rooms but not a sense of massiveness, and we thought, ‘This is plenty for us,’” Feinstein told the New York Times.
But it wasn’t. Feinstein later picked up No. 143 next door in 2005 for $3.825 million. He and Flannery gutted the twin property and doubled the size of their home.
The couple is now reversing course, downsizing in the city now that their main residence is in Carmel, Ind., where Feinstein is artistic director for the Center of the Performing Arts.
Tom Postilio and Mickey Conlon of CORE, along with Maria Torresy and Sami Hassoumi of Brown Harris Stevens share the exclusive listing. [NYT] — Julie Strickland