Facebook Co-Founder Revealed As Buyer of $23.5M West Village Townhouse With an Underground Tunnel
When it was revealed last week that Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes sold his massive Soho loft for $8.5 million, it was also speculated that he and husband Sean Eldridge were the buyers of a $23.5 million West Village townhouse. When that sale hit records in September, the name on the deed was revealed as Tom van Loben Sels, the same person behind the recent Soho transaction. The Post now confirms through their sources that the power couple are in fact the lucky new owners of the historic home at 157 West 12th Street.
According to the paper, the landmarked home has an underground tunnel. The ten-foot-wide and “well-lit” passageway apparently has “no tunnel feel at all” and starts in the home’s finished basement, ending at a staircase that leads to the carriage house that can be used as a guest house. Other perks of the three-bedroom, 4,164-square-foot spread include a wine cellar, home theater, wood-burning fireplace, exposed brick, 19th-century columns, and a “book-lined library” (likely a selling point considering the men had a similar room in their last place).
Michael Stewart, a UBS employee based in Zurich, bought the townhouse in 2004 for $3.4 million. Hughes and Eldridge (financier and former Democratic congressional candidate) picked it up in the fall in an off-market deal brokered by Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens. The couple also owns an 80-acre estate upstate in Garrison.
[Via NYP]
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