{"id":455448,"date":"2026-02-08T01:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455448\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:02:16","slug":"paul-muldoon-and-jean-hanff-korelitzs-19th-century-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455448\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Muldoon and Jean Hanff Korelitz\u2019s 19th-Century Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Great Rooms<\/a><\/p>\n

\n A visual diary by Design Editor Wendy Goodman.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Living Room The exposed beams are original. \u201cThe apartment was primitive and rustic in a way I\u2019d never seen,\u201d says Jean Hanff Korelitz. \u201cThe River Near Reading,\u201d the F. Hardy painting above the added mantel and fireplace is a cover devised by contractor Robert Benes to conceal a TV. Korelitz found the couches on Instagram.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

It was definitely an adventure,\u201d says the novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz of the switch she and her husband, the poet Paul Muldoon, made from the Upper West Side to the Financial District.<\/p>\n

For a decade, the couple had lived in a 1910 building that Korelitz tolerated because it was closer to her son\u2019s school. When he graduated, she got on StreetEasy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a specific thing I wanted: an old and unmodified space. Basically, I wanted to live in the 19th century,\u201d she says. \u201cI wanted to be reminded of Gangs of New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Korelitz, whose fiction <\/a>is set in the present day, came across the loft of an 1860s sea-biscuit factory near the South Street Seaport. At the open house, the view from the windows \u00adfacing the street reminded her of an Edward Hopper painting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were about ten other people, and one of them kept measuring his height against the lowest beam. I remember thinking, Get out of my house,\u201d she says. \u201cI have always said, \u2018This one is for love.\u2019 This is the final move.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple divvied up the open space into discreet zones and enlisted their daughter, Dorothy, a decorator<\/a>, to close off the bedroom with library walls.<\/p>\n

Muldoon<\/a>, who was a professor at Princeton for nearly 40 years, turned a narrow nook in the living room into his workstation. \u201cI am a person who has gone to an office throughout my writing life,\u201d he says. \u201cHonestly, what else are you going to do with a spot like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Korelitz often writes on a sofa facing the windows, usually with her mutts Sherlock and Finn on her lap. \u201cThe only thing I can\u2019t do is sit at a desk,\u201d she says. For the most part, the couple prefers to salvage secondhand furniture, such as their cannonball rope bed and the 19th-century cupboard and settle bench the previous owners left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe couches are the first new furniture I\u2019ve purchased since 1997,\u201d Korelitz says. \u201cThe exception to the rule of \u00ad\u2018Everything old is better.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Writing Nook Paul Muldoon (pictured) fashioned an office in a corner of the living room, where he now does most of his work. \u201cThe brown jug on top of the bookcase is a student piece by Edmund de Waal,\u201d says Korelitz. \u201cWe were at Cambridge together.\u201d
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Sitting Area Korelitz often writes on a sofa facing the windows, the only natural light source in the apartment.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Sideboard \u201cWe couldn\u2019t decide whether to close off the kitchen with a wall or leave it open,\u201d Korelitz says. The cupboard, found at Hyde Park Country Auctions, is a divider that allows for a view into the kitchen from the living room.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Library Wall Dorothy Muldoon devised back-to-back bookshelves to close off the bedroom.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Bathroom The paneling is original. \u201cThe new bathtub is about 100 years old; it was out in a field in Connecticut,\u201d Korelitz says. The old icebox turned vanity is a gift from a friend. \u201cI think she found it on the street,\u201d Korelitz adds.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Kitchen \u201cWe don\u2019t like to use the word island, but this dry sink acts as one,\u201d says Korelitz. \u201cIt\u2019s not a great refrigerator. But doesn\u2019t it look good?\u201d The Yellow-ware mugs and Victorian cutlery are from U.S. flea markets and British car-boot sales.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dining\u00a0Area The Bixby Vine & Drapery wallpaper is by Adelphi Paper Hangings<\/a>. \u201cThe table, like a lot of things, came from\u00a0LiveAuctioneers,\u201d says Korelitz.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Central Zone The \u201cMoss Cow\u201d painting is by Dermot Seymour, and it was in the couple\u2019s home in Princeton. The furniture is a work in progress. Muldoon would like to find leather Wingback chairs. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford them,\u201d Korelitz tells him. \u201cIt\u2019s a running gag,\u201d Muldoon says. \u201cIt keeps us going. It gives us something to talk about, right?\u201d
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n The Bedroom The art includes a drawing by Sylvia Plath, watercolors by Jack B. Yeats and Percy French, a cartoon by Helen E. Hokinson, and a print by Rockwell Kent that belonged to Korelitz\u2019s grandparents; the bookplate was also theirs. \u201cOur very old cannonball rope bed doesn\u2019t fit a regular mattress,\u201d Korelitz says, so she finds vintage heavy linen sheets in European flea markets.
\n Photo: Jeremy Liebman\n <\/p>\n

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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the February 9, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n

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\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the February 9, 2026, issue of
\n New York Magazine.<\/p>\n

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