{"id":59195,"date":"2025-12-03T01:58:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T01:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59195\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T01:58:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T01:58:18","slug":"inside-a-20m-nyc-townhouse-with-an-83-foot-rock-climbing-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/59195\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside a $20M NYC townhouse with an 83-foot rock climbing wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a recent fall weekend, the line outside an otherwise quiet stretch of Minetta Lane snaked toward Sixth Avenue. Neighbors, architecture buffs and tourists waited for their turn to step into a Greenwich Village townhouse that feels more like a habitable installation than a conventional home: a six-story compound wrapped around an 83-foot rock-climbing wall.<\/p>\n

That house, at 16 Minetta Lane, is now back on the market for $19.97 million \u2014 and it seems people are hungry to get a piece of it.<\/p>\n

The property is the work of architect Adam Kushner, who spent more than a decade turning a 19th-century townhouse and rear carriage house into a single, highly theatrical residence \u2014 then lived through years of construction with his family.<\/p>\n

In 2024, it listed<\/a> under a different brokerage. The listing is now being marketed by Nicole Gary of Keller Williams NYC, who sold the home to Kushner, which for him was a momentous occasion.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The townhome occupies about 5,200 square feet. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The rock-climbing wall is 83 feet tall. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved in more or less on December 22nd, 2012 at 4:30 in the afternoon,\u201d Kushner said. \u201cWe have never left the house since that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as he gutted and rebuilt, he added, \u201cwe did a lot of demolition. We tore the house apart, and yet we stayed there. We were living through this incredible major renovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, Kushner treated 16 Minetta Lane as both laboratory and family home, transforming a pair of 19th-century structures into one of Greenwich Village\u2019s most idiosyncratic private residences.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This is considered the largest climbing rock wall in a private residence in the city. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

Now, after raising his twins inside the six-story compound \u2014 and living through years of construction \u2014 he\u2019s preparing to part ways with the home.<\/p>\n

Kushner bought the townhouse and its rear carriage house and then merged them into a single residence defined by reclaimed timbers, a triple-height living room and nine working fireplaces.<\/p>\n

The most eye-catching feature is the 83-foot climbing wall that pierces the home from courtyard to rooftop. But he said the home isn\u2019t solely about that amenity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate to think the whole house experience \u2026 comes down to a feature which is unusual,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was part of a bigger narrative that I was telling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The great room boasts floor-to-ceiling windows. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The home boasts a wood art feature for any nine of the fireplaces in the home. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The kitchen. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

The wall began as a metaphor: a vertical timeline marking both sides of his family\u2019s history and their stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original idea was to take little things from our past that we would grasp on to,\u201d he said, from his grandfather\u2019s eyeglasses to a sign salvaged from his in-laws\u2019 former store on the Lower East Side. Technical limits stopped him from embedding heirlooms, but the wall became a fully engineered climbing system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are easy climbs, hard climbs there\u2019s virtually impossible climbs,\u201d he said, adding that he climbed himself with a few friends last month.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The home occupies six floors. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

Beyond the spectacle, the home is rooted in its historical layers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt builds upon the house\u2019s actual foundations, which go back to 1848,\u201d Kushner said. The property once housed a horseshoeing facility; horses were \u201cdragged through the house into the back to be shoed,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

It later became an eight-unit rooming house before famed designer Robert Isabell gutted it in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe created these double-, triple-height spaces,\u201d Kushner said. \u201cThere were floor-to-ceiling windows that one could topple out of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kushner preserved portions of that radical interior but rebuilt most of the structure.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The meditation retreat room. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A living space. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

Today, the main house connects to the four-story carriage house across a covered courtyard, offering a rare two-building configuration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a perfect setting for a mother-daughter or mother-in-law situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The home\u2019s upper floors feature a meditation room with a grass-covered terrace, two secondary bedroom suites, and a fifth-floor primary bedroom with a woodburning fireplace and views stretching to the Empire State Building and Freedom Tower.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the tallest building in the protected district,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will have forever views to the south.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the scale, Kushner describes the home not as imposing \u2014 but supportive.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A den. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"One<\/p>\n

One of six bedrooms. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A second bedroom. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nurturing \u2026 you really feel good living there. I enjoy it. It\u2019s surrounded, comforting all those things that homes are supposed to do for you,\u201d Kushner said. \u201cIt\u2019s not anonymous. It\u2019s not cold. It\u2019s not sterile.\u201c<\/p>\n

Still, he said it\u2019s more house than he and his wife now need.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re empty nesters now,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of house for two people.\u201d<\/p>\n

They plan to relocate part time to Gardiner, N.Y., where they\u2019re designing what he calls a retirement home, while maintaining a smaller place in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m born and bred in New York,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I\u2019m going to finish out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An ensuite bathroom. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A gym. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The rooftop. LuxQue Media \u2013 Mike Aghachi<\/p>\n

Letting go won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to feel terrible,\u201d he admitted. \u201cI really I\u2019m going to be very, very upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he sees the sale as another chapter in the house\u2019s long evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for the next person to step in and live their life in it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a recent fall weekend, the line outside an otherwise quiet stretch of Minetta Lane snaked toward Sixth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31821,31819,31820,2519,31824,31822,1208,31823,31818,9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-59195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-adam-kushner","9":"tag-carriage-house","10":"tag-climbing-wall","11":"tag-greenwich-village","12":"tag-kushner","13":"tag-luxque-media","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-mike-aghachi","16":"tag-minetta-lane","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-nyc-headlines","21":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59195","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=59195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}