A rare residence with prime access to one of Manhattan’s best-kept secrets has listed for sale, offering its lucky buyer a supreme city bragging right.
This grand Lenox Hill townhouse at 164 E. 66th St., asking $10.75 million, comes with a basement sauna, approximately 3,620 square feet of living space, a roof deck and access to a lush oasis that could give Gramercy Park a run for its reputation — if only anyone knew it existed.
Unlike that famously gated Manhattan greenspace farther downtown, however, Jones Wood Garden cannot be ogled from the street — only neighboring residents can look upon, let alone roam, this pocket of nature enclosed within the buildings that line Lexington and Third avenues.
Now, thanks to this newly listed property, someone new will be able to join this ultra-exclusive club. But it’s not the sole opportunity for prospective buyers to call Jones Wood Garden their home, not to mention their retreat. No. 164 joins other Jones Wood Garden-sharers: Nos. 163 and 159 E. 65th St., asking $9 million and $8.75 million respectively. No. 157, meanwhile, asks a higher $13.45 million.
They’re now poised to trade hands for the first time since 1998 at the earliest, according to StreetEasy records, and 2012 at the latest.
As for why four of the homes there are simultaneously on the market, the reasons vary — though one, in particular, is the way life goes.
“Several of the owners raised their families here — and now that the kids are mostly out of the house, they feel it is the right time to downsize a bit,” said Ethan Leifer of 74 West Real Estate, who holds the listing for No. 163.
Thomas Wexler, who — along with Tyler Wexler and Morgan Garofalo, all of Leslie Garfield — currently holds the listing for No. 164, however, believes it’s “just coincidence,” that a third of the homes there are now up for grabs.
Dexter Guerrieri of Vandenberg, The Townhouse Experts, who holds the listing for No. 159, agrees, calling it a “fluke.”
Built around 1920, the private Jones Wood Garden sanctuary was created by developers looking to breathe new life into 12 brownstones along East 65th and 66th streets, which had lost their market luster.
To do this, they remodeled the properties and combined their backyards into an approximately 10,800-square-foot split-level garden, which they named for Jones Wood, the forested expanse that spanned 65th to 76th streets until it was developed in the late 1800s, Ephemeral New York reported.
(This original Jones Wood was itself named for a 19th-century tavern owner, according to the outlet.)
“A fascinating feature of these gardens is their development on two levels; this treatment seems actually to add spaciousness and certainly arouses interest and the desire to explore them upstairs and down,” the Garden Magazine captioned photos of the enchanting hidden grounds in a 1921 issue.
More than a century on, wandering Jones Wood today continues to inspire a sense of curious wonder. How many other magic nooks like this are quietly growing throughout the city, veiled by brownstones, concealed from the public for only a lucky few to relish? Indeed, the garden offers a respite unimaginable to most New Yorkers, and one where, on a recent balmy Monday, a few fortunate folks were actually out enjoying it.
The secret retreat still remains exclusively accessible to the 12 surrounding homeowners, who pay approximately $3,000 annually to maintain it.
In addition to garden access, the recently listed abode at No. 164 also features a fitness room, radiant-heated marble floors, an elevator, a wet bar, six fireplaces (some gas-burning, some wood-burning, and one with a marble mantel reclaimed from the Plaza Hotel), a roof deck, two balconies, five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. Its seller declined The Post’s request for comment.
Immediately outside the properties there is some open, but private, space, but most of the garden is shared.
It underwent a gut renovation 10 years ago and is “in the best condition of the homes [with Garden-access] by far,” Wexler told The Post.
Though these four homes are all for sale and all share this coveted amenity, they also share another common denominator: They’re all lovely, and bring the outdoors in.
No. 164, repped by Wexler, hit the market in March, and its listing images give a sense of escape, with views of the garden through multiple oversize windows. It’s the same for No. 159, repped by Guerrieri, whose marketing images give greater panoramas of the greenspace, with walkways, seating areas and spring’s many flowering trees. Browsing through the listing images of No. 163, repped by Leifer, shows viewers the garden’s gorgeous fountain.
But more than that, they all offer an escape.
“It’s like a small community but everybody is very respectful of each other and their privacy,” Wexler said of the garden’s vibe.