As quickly as he stepped contained in the East Village duplex 12 years in the past, the theater director David Saint knew that it will be his subsequent residence.
“I noticed about 20 residences whereas I used to be trying to purchase, and this was the final one,” he mentioned. “The minute I walked in, I knew.”
What offered Mr. Saint on the brand-new penthouse, simply off Union Sq., at 123 Third Avenue and East 14th Avenue, was the wraparound terrace and its gorgeous cityscape and river views. He would ultimately remodel the terrace into his “little Backyard of Eden” with fountains, obelisks, and potted timber, vegetation and flowers — to not point out a occurring place for events.
Mr. Saint, who has labored in theater for many years and extra just lately was an affiliate producer on the 2021 movie “West Aspect Story,” has entertained quite a few celebrities there, together with Marlo Thomas, Tyne Daly and Steven Spielberg, together with the casts of many exhibits. “When individuals come to go to the residence, they don’t need to depart the terrace,” he mentioned.
However Mr. Saint is now able to do exactly that. After a breakup together with his accomplice, with whom he had shared the residence for a number of years, he mentioned he had decided that “it’s time for me to maneuver away — it’s a brand new chapter.” He’s promoting the penthouse for $4.995 million, in accordance with the itemizing dealer, James Foreman of Brown Harris Stevens; month-to-month carrying costs whole $8,633.
Mr. Saint purchased the unit within the spring of 2012 for almost $3.9 million after which spent about $750,000 extra, by his recollection, landscaping, designing and irrigating the terrace, in addition to constructing out the closets and including bookcases to the lounge.
“Arthur Laurents was my mentor, and I inherited 75 first-edition books from him,” Mr. Saint mentioned, referring to the Broadway director, playwright and screenwriter who died in 2011. He serves because the executor and literary executor of Mr. Laurents’s property and the president of the Laurents/Hatcher Basis, which helps assist new theatrical works. Mr. Saint can be the longtime creative director of George Avenue Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J.
Mr. Saint’s residence has different gadgets that after belonged to Mr. Laurents, together with art work, numerous items of theater memorabilia, elegant crystal chandeliers and a Baldwin grand piano, which, as he identified, “has plenty of historical past.”
“I pried open the bench, and inside was authentic sheet music from ‘West Aspect Story’ and ‘Gypsy,’” he mentioned, including that the composers Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein each “performed songs on this piano.”
Encompassing 2,049 sq. toes, the penthouse, one in every of a number of within the constructing, sits on the fifteenth and sixteenth flooring of the condominium, which was accomplished in 2011. It has two bedrooms, every with an en suite toilet, and a powder room. There are 11-foot ceilings and oak flooring all through the area.
The house’s essential entrance is on the decrease degree. A lobby results in an incredible room with floor-to-ceiling home windows and glass doorways that open to the 960-square-foot terrace. The loftlike room, measuring 40 toes by 13 toes, has a front room space, a marble powder room and a eating area. Close by is an open kitchen outfitted with high-end home equipment, together with Caesarstone counter tops and Poliform lacquer cupboards.
“It’s an excellent kitchen for cooking,” Mr. Foreman mentioned, noting, too, that every space of the nice room, together with the kitchen, has an entrance to the terrace. “It flows so fantastically.”
Upstairs are the bedrooms and a laundry space. The first suite has an extra-large walk-in closet and a 13-by-7-foot balcony.
Mr. Saint says he’ll miss the residence’s out of doors area, in addition to the vibrancy of the neighborhood. “The views are breathtaking,” he mentioned. “You see all the nice landmark buildings” — amongst them the Empire State, Chrysler and Consolidated Edison Buildings and One World Commerce Heart.
After which there are the “pyramids.”
“I might sit on the terrace, and I counted 27 pyramids atop the buildings, all primarily designed by Freemasons again within the early 1900s,” Mr. Saint mentioned. On the terrace, “I wished to proceed that theme, so I created three obelisks with pyramids on prime,” he defined. “The pyramid form is meant to convey the vitality of the solar into town.”
