Wine-Making Artists Called This $6.8M UWS Townhouse Home for Over 50 Years
Like many a New York City address, this classic townhouse at 307 West 103rd Street has a creative legacy as well as a rich history as a family home. The Queen Anne bow-front on a tree-lined Upper West Side block was, since 1956, the family home of Leonard and Chiarina “Cherie” Tredanari, a sculptor couple who also happened to be winemakers (as per the listing, The New York Times called theirs “one of the rarest Italian wine labels in the world”). Leonard’s career could have been right out of “Mad Men:” He was a live TV director in the ’60s for JFK’s presidential campaign and president of the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), where he created The Director’s Studio.
Leonard passed away in 2003 and his wife followed in February of this year at the age of 96. The family’s longtime home is now on the market for $6.795 million. While the historic four-story townhouse with so many original details intact is a treasure in its own right, its artistic and artisan past add a compelling energy, from the unassumingly creative decor to a cellar filled with wine casks and vintners’ equipment.
Currently configured as a two-family home with a high-rent top-floor apartment, the house could easily be reconfigured as a five-bedroom single-family house. Entering on the parlor floor brings you through original oak winter doors leading into two grand rooms with historic details–plaster moldings, high ceilings, oak wainscoting and a grand oak staircase–in every direction. The graciously-proportioned space comprised of the front sitting room and rear dining room make an impressive entertaining area, with large rear windows overlooking the garden. Though not pictured in the listing, the windowed kitchen is in the rear extension.
If you enter on the garden level through a wrought iron gate, you’ll find a laid-back living room with a fireplace and a large artist’s studio to the rear, which opens onto a verdant planted garden and greenhouse. Also here is a full bath and plenty of storage.
On the third floor are a library and master bedroom (both with fireplaces), connected by a hall of deep closets and an original shaving sink. The master boasts an en suite bath that fills the entire extension. There’s also an original dumbwaiter shaft that could be refitted as a laundry chute to the cellar.
The top floor two-bedroom rental apartment boasts a planted terrace, high ceilings and skylights; easy roof access lends itself to the creation of a penthouse and roof garden.
In the cellar, with its original laid-up stone foundation walls, lies perhaps the biggest reminder of the home’s past life. The front half is filled with aged vintner’s machinery and was used for wine making, aging and storing; “wooden barrels rest quietly until the wine is ready for bottling.” To the rear are storage and laundry areas.
This classic and picturesque Upper West Side block between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue–long a beloved family-friendly enclave–is half a block from Riverside Park and near Broadway corridor shopping, international dining, cultural institutions and convenient transportation.
[Listing: 307 West 103rd Street by Wolf Jakubowski for Brown Harris Stevens]
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Images courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens
