New York’s Favorite Photographer’s Mansion!

New York’s Favorite Photographer’s Mansion!

New York's Favorite Photographer's Mansion!

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The landmarked Gustav Mayer House on Staten Island, New York is a rare find for more reasons than one would expect. In its day in the late 1800s and early 1900s it was built in the grand Italianate Villa style during the Picturesque Period, popular from 1840 to 1885. It had three stories and a fourth story cupola with porches that originally wrapped around three sides and large arched windows. It sat deep into the lot with flowering trees and Victorian flower gardens, built in 1855 for David Ryers on the site of the old Rose and Crown Tavern. Gustav Mayer, owner of Gustav A. Mayer Confectionery, acquired his wealth by selling his sugar cookie to Nabisco and creating molds for fancy imprinted cookies that were all the rage. He also did quite well producing sparkly Christmas ornaments from molds he designed. These are still being produced today and are quite collectable. He bought the house in 1889 and moved his business into the basement, where many of the tools of his trade and inventions are still housed. After he died in 1918, his daughters continued to live there and enjoyed painting the murals depicting their travels that can still be seen in the stairwells. By the time they were each over 100 years old, they lived in only two rooms upstairs, allowing the remainder of the house to fall to age and disrepair.

The current owner had admired the grandeur of the old house when he would stop and look at it as a boy of 19. Forty years later he bought it and moved in his wife and twins. They renovated the first floor where they live and turned the mansion’s unrestored portion for vintage photography shoots. Advertized on its own website, the upper floors have been rented out to the fashion industry for Elle, W, New York, Vogue, Anthropologie, Fossil and many more haute couture designers.

With the three floors, partial basement and cupola totaling approximately 7,700 square feet and sited on a half acre of land, the house includes ten bedrooms and two baths along with the original fireplace surrounds and mill work. The last of its era, the Gustave A. Mayer house became a designated landmark in 1989. For more information.

Priced at $2.31 million, a $520,000 allowance for exterior restoration and another $50,000 for interior refurbishment will be given the buyer, bringing the final price to $1.74 million.

Source: www.citi-habitats.com