2 min read
One of the art world’s most famous couples once lived and worked in a gated townhouse a block from Washington Square Park. Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner didn’t own the MacDougal Alley home—a brick-faced carriage house built in the 1870s—but rather stayed there in the winter of 1950 due to the generosity of its owner, a fellow celebrated artist and their friend Alfonso Ossorio.
Now, Ossorio’s 1,500-square-foot residence is on the market for the first time since 1988, per The New York Post. The asking price for the two-bedroom, two-bath home is nearly $8 million.
Zdravko Cota for Sotheby’s International Realty
The second-floor kitchen and lofted bedroom above.
The timing comes at a moment of renewed interest in the late couple, who are the subject of a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,” on view through January 31. The retrospective includes 120 works on loan from more than 80 institutions around the world. It is the first show to put Krasner’s and Pollock’s complete bodies of work in dialogue with one another. The exhibit contains many pieces made during the couple’s time in their house in Long Island’s the Springs, where they lived in a modest farmhouse.
Zdravko Cota for Sotheby’s International Realty
The ground floor living area comes with a wood-burning fireplace.
Additionally, just weeks ago, ELLE Decor exclusively revealed that Pollock’s onetime artist loft and home in the West Village hit the market for just under $2 million.
Over on MacDougal Alley, both Pollock and Krasner used the 25-foot-wide residence as a studio, per the Post. The three-story structure features hardwood floors, beamed ceilings, and a wood-burning fireplace.
Zdravko Cota for Sotheby’s International Realty
The rear garden.
The second-floor kitchen (there’s also one on the ground level) sports a massive skylight that functions more like an angled wall, with a grid of glass panes allowing sunshine to flood the space. A lofted bedroom lined with bookshelves overlooks the space.
Amenities include a south-facing balcony on the second floor, a garden planted with mature trees, and a deeded parking space in front of the home. There’s even the potential of turning the currently bare rooftop into a landscaped sanctuary.
9 MacDougal Alley is listed for $7.995 million with Mae Bagai and Jonathan Hettinger of Sotheby’s International Realty—Downtown Manhattan Brokerage.
Geoffrey Montes is an associate editor at ELLE Decor with a serious love for all things real estate and design. Before that, he worked at Architectural Digest, Galerie, and Preservation magazines, covering everything from jaw-dropping listings to world-famous architects and design events like Salone del Mobile and Homo Faber.