I.M. Pei’s Sutton Place townhouse sells for $8.6M

The New York City home where the late renowned architect I.M. Pei lived for 45 years has found a buyer. As first reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by property records, the four-story home at 11 Sutton Place sold for $8,600,000, an increase from the initial 2019 asking price of $8,000,000. Pei, the mastermind behind the Louvre’s glass pyramid and countless other projects, bought the home in the early 1970s with his wife, Eileen, for just $215,000, according to the newspaper.

Pei bought the 3,848-square-foot townhouse from Laura “Polly” Delano, a cousin of FDR in the 1970s. The Pritzker Prize-winner renovated the home and added his own designs, including a stunning spiral staircase and the oblong skylight above it. Pei also designed soapstone mantles for three of the home’s four fireplaces.

Another architectural highlight is the wall of windows installed on the top three floors of the home, which overlook the park and East River and help flood the home with natural light.

The home has four bedrooms, a first-floor dining room that opens onto a garden, a library with built-in bookshelves, a temperature-controlled wine cellar in the basement, and an elevator that serves every floor, including the basement.

The architect died in May 2019 at the age of 102. That October, his family listed the house for $8,000,000. A deal came in that was over the asking price, but fell through because of Covid, according to the Wall Street Journal. It was relisted in September 2020.

As listing agent Edward Joseph of Christie’s International Real Estate told the WSJ: “I.M. Pei and his legacy definitely played a big part in the marketability of the house.”

Eileen and I.M. Pei collected art, including works by Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. Christie’s held an auction the year the house was listed and sold the couple’s art collection for over $25 million.

[Via Wall Street Journal]

RELATED:

• Late architect I.M. Pei’s self-designed Sutton Place townhouse hits the market for $8M
• All of I.M. Pei’s New York City projects

Photos courtesy of Christie’s International Real Estate