Art-filled ‘Musée Maison,’ Hamilton Heights home of artist/acrobat, still a tough sell at $2.7M
In 2015, 6sqft took a look at this unusual Hamilton Heights three-family townhouse at 532 West 148th Street, then on the market for $2.5 million. The home was purchased by Portuguese-born architect/artist Luis Da Cruz in 2006 for $995,000 and thoroughly renovated, emerging as a canvas for the artist’s personal creative vision. Cruz restored the 1920 home’s carved wood stairways and railings, moldings, five fireplaces, beamed ceiling and exposed brick walls, and added his signature art pieces to an eclectic industrial/bohemian decor. Luis called the home Musée Maison (aptly, Museum House), and made it his studio and workshop; he also hosted art events during which all of the work was for sale and he would perform tricks on aerial silks suspended from the ceiling. The home has apparently yet to find the perfect match, and has seen its asking price rise with the market rather than fall to entice buyers; the four-bedroom house was just re-listed for $2.7 million.
On a quiet tree-lined block in the upper Manhattan neighborhood, the townhouse isn’t short on modern comfort and design. A renovated kitchen boasts stainless steel appliances, a washer/dryer and a wine fridge in an haute-loft setting of steel cabinets and concrete worktops. A vast open-concept dining room is filled with light. According to a 2013 Daily News article, the resident artwork consists of “raw material culled from construction sites, street corners, junkyards and demolished homes in all five boroughs and lovingly turned into paintings, mobiles, furniture, chandeliers and candelabras.”
The open floor plan continues upstairs in the large master bedroom and second bedroom. The plan might be a bit too open for some: A circus-like curtain barely conceals the bath, and woven strings delineate an office area. Some bedrooms feature notably offbeat beds–one mattress is elevated on squat cork risers and another has its exposed springs lit from below.
A garden-level space can be converted into a separate apartment for extra income, used as an artist’s studio or simply provide more space for a sprawling single-family home. The house has central heat and AC throughout.
A grand double staircase runs throughout this uniquely creative space.
The ground floor opens to a private garden.
[Listing: 532 West 148th Street by Joshua Sloyer for Douglas Elliman]
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Images courtesy of Douglas Elliman.
