{"id":48182,"date":"2025-11-22T02:12:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48182\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T02:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:12:13","slug":"an-odd-sutton-place-gnome-house-for-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/48182\/","title":{"rendered":"An Odd Sutton Place \u2018Gnome\u2019 House for Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n A 1907 building with a 1933 renovation that\u2019s turned it into a local icon.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

The ramp that rises from East 58th Street to the Queensboro Bridge cuts through the backs of apartment towers and prewar buildings, then passes by a strange sight<\/a>: the sloping gambrel roof of what looks like a fairy-tale cottage transplanted from Disneyland. \u201cIt\u2019s like a chalet in the middle of Manhattan,\u201d says broker Ariel Ben Ezra, who is listing<\/a> the odd local icon for $10 million. That price might seem steep for a three-story building tucked against a noisy bridge. But it seems a bit more fair when you learn that it comes with 9,500 square feet of buildable space in the form of air rights. That means a buyer could take down the roofline and add almost four more stories.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n After the 1933 renovation.
\n Photo: Samuel H. Gottscho\/MCNY\n <\/p>\n

Still, how has this place survived? The area \u2014 on the edge of Sutton Place<\/a> \u2014 hasn\u2019t been landmarked, and neither has the building, though it appears in books on city architecture and was lauded<\/a> as the \u201capotheosis of \u2026 eye-catching shopfronts\u201d of the 1920s and 1930s by the critic Christopher Gray when it was converted from a French wholesale bakery<\/a> in a two-story 1907 brick commercial space. (That building predated<\/a> the bridge opening by a hair.)\u00a0After its owner died, the spot passed<\/a> to his sons, who went big with a renovation that would be visible from the highway. The new Gnome Bakery might not have convinced New Yorkers that gnomes were actually working in the back of the kitchen, but it certainly convinced a few drivers to come by next time they were on 59th Street.<\/p>\n

Price: $10 million ($6,154 in monthly taxes)<\/p>\n

Specs: 5 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms<\/p>\n

Extras: Ground-floor commercial unit, terrace, Juliet balcony, backyard, 9,500 square feet of buildable space under current zoning<\/p>\n

10-minute walking radius: Trader Joe\u2019s, Piccolo Cucina Uptown, Bloomingdale\u2019s<\/p>\n

Listed by: Ariel Ben Ezra, Wingate Advisors, Inc. <\/a><\/p>\n

The 1933 renovation<\/a> added a third story that poked above the highway and made the structure\u00a0impossible to ignore with that eye-catching roofline, a mural that featured tiny dancing men, and a papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 gnome holding a \u201cpiece of bread with a bite missing,\u201d per<\/a> Gray. Inside, the theme continued with \u201ca charming evocation of a medieval German kitchen with half-timbering and low-springing plaster arches rising from stubby wood columns,\u201d according to Robert A.M. Stern\u2019s survey, New York 1930. But times changed, and so did America\u2019s feelings about Germans. By 1942, when the building was sold<\/a>, the store was bankrupt. Later occupants included an exterminator, a frame shop, and a kitchen-supply store.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, the last owner joined with a neighbor on the other side of the ramp to put together a deal to sell the building and its four floors of air rights to a developer who could add several floors to each building and a skybridge over the ramp to connect them. The city didn\u2019t oppose the idea but required special permits and paperwork to do it, so it didn\u2019t make financial sense, says broker Bob Knakal, who had helped put together the plan. As for simply building a few floors over the Gnome building, Knakal says that would have meant new elevators and exits that cut into the size of the rooms. \u201cIt\u2019s very tough to build something substantial on a 25-foot-wide site,\u201d he notes. In 1997, he sold<\/a> the building to an owner with a simpler plan for it: open an office downstairs and rent out the rooms above. Chiropractor David Rowe<\/a> has been working below and renting out<\/a> the top two floors as a glitzy five-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex with a massive terrace, complete with a hot tub. Juliet balconies and a chalet-style exposed-beam ceiling look nearly as romantic as the bakery downstairs once did. And perhaps it feels like a real retreat. Otherwise, how could it make any sense \u2014 a $13,500-per-month apartment next to a noisy highway? Ezra insists that the rooms are surprisingly quiet. \u201cI don\u2019t think people would pay $14,000 a month to hear the highway,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The open great room has a kitchen and dining area near the back of the building and a living area in the front.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The ceiling of the great room stretches up 27 feet \u2014 the better to make an impression on drivers zooming over the ramp next door.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The living area has a Juliet balcony looking over 59th Street.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The open kitchen, with doors leading to a private terrace.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n A private terrace off the back of the kitchen, on the lower level.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n There are five bedrooms in the rental unit.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The apartment and the downstairs office kept the building\u2019s exposed brick and mahogany doors.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n There are three full bathrooms in the penthouse.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n And even the bathrooms are stuffed with character \u2014 though there are no murals of gnomes to be seen.
\n Photo: Josh Fields\n <\/p>\n

Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n

A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n

Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Notice<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 1907 building with a 1933 renovation that\u2019s turned it into a local icon. Photo: Josh Fields The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[13797,14800,8315,75,84,83,27217,9,24,63,5986,13299,19376,461,23067],"class_list":["post-48182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-conversion","tag-conversions","tag-historic-preservation","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-mixed-use-building","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-on-the-market","tag-real-estate-listings","tag-sutton-place","tag-the-real-estate","tag-unicorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}