Walter Cronkite’s Longtime New York Brownstone!

The longtime New York home of “the most trusted man in America” is for sale at $7.7 million. Walter Cronkite, the CBS news icon who brought stories such as JFK’s assassination, America landing on the moon, and Watergate to millions of Americans, bought the four-story brownstone for $40,000, soon after moving to New York in the early 1950s. This was the home where Walter and wife, Mary “Betsy” Cronkite, raised their three children. Walter died in 2009.

Born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, Walter dropped out of the University of Texas and, in 1936, began working as a sports announcer in Kansas City, later became one of America’s most important World War II reporters covering dangerous bombing raids over Germany and the Battle of the Bulge. In 1950, he went to New York City where he later took over the CBS Evening News in 1963 - just a few weeks before the JFK assassination.

Built in 1880, the Cronkites purchased their New York home soon after he moved his family to the city. According to the current owner in an interview with the New York Post, Cronkite had a hard time finding a place to live and purchased the home for $40,000 - with squatters in residence. The Cronkites turned the home into an elegant residence where they raised their children and entertained world leaders, celebrities and business CEOs for almost 50 years. When the Cronkites sold the home in 1999, the new owner, who is still the home’s owner, updated the home respectively enhancing its best historical features while at the same time adding new features that would take it elegantly through the 21st century. A brownstone with great bones, the home has beautiful millwork, stunning fireplaces, attractively-crafted plaster ceilings, large windows, a rear garden and three Juliet balconies from which to view it.

Located in the Yorkville neighborhood near Carl Schurz Park on a tree-lined street, the four-story, 4,000-square-foot home has four bedrooms and six baths plus a maids/guest room. Rooms are large and airy with tall ceilings and big windows that fill the rooms with natural daylight. Rooms include formal living and dining rooms, family room, modern eat-in sunny kitchen with French doors that open to the landscaped garden and an exercise room. The master suite, located on the 3rd floor, has two dressing rooms, a fireplace, and the larger of the three Juliet balconies.

One of New York City’s best brownstones, the former Cronkite home is awash with history from its 19th-century historical aspect to its 20th-century owners, and now into the 21st century. The home is priced at $7.7 million.

The listing agent is Thomas Wexler of Leslie J. Garfield, Manhattan office.

Photo credit: Leslie J. Garfield Realty

Source: lesliegarfield.com