Imagine having Tom Cruise as your building’s superintendent. Long ago, that could have been possible.
Before landing his big break in the 1981 film, “Taps,” the world’s most famous movie star worked as a super in this landmarked limestone Renaissance Revival townhouse on the Upper West Side.
It’s about to hit the market for $14.99 million.
Back then, Cruise lived in a 300-square-foot studio apartment at 50 W. 86th St. His mom paid half the rent — and he paid the rest by changing lightbulbs and taking out the garbage.
In the 1980s, Sarah Jessica Parker and her then-boyfriend, Robert Downey Jr., also lived in the penthouse, which is partly why the townhouse became known as the Good Luck building.
The five-story, 9,165-square-foot townhouse is 25 feet wide with a private gated entrance. It comes with original moldings, an ornate staircase and around 18,000 square feet of air rights.
While the home is currently divided into nine units, including two duplex penthouses, plus a commercial space and pool, it can be converted back to single-family use.
The seller, Therese Flaherty, is a former celebrity makeup and hair artist who lived in the building before buying it from former owners Lee and Libby Allen for $2.7 million in 1999. Lee was an actor, dancer and comedian who played Eddie Ryan in the film, “Funny Girl,” with Barbra Streisand; Libby was a singer and cabaret performer.
The Allens even hosted a cast/birthday party for Streisand in the building when there was a pool in the basement. They were so connected to showbusiness that they often rented out apartments in the building to struggling actors, including Cruise, Flaherty said.
“They were a showbiz couple and considered some of the residents like family. They really lived their lives through that building,” Flaherty said. “There’s a really sweet Christmas card they once showed me from Tom’s mother, thanking them for taking care of her son. She’d often leave a little note for them, letting them know that he took out the garbage, swept the rugs and changed the lightbulbs before flying off to LA.”
Flaherty continued the tradition, renting to actors like Hank Azaria. At one point, Flaherty covered up the indoor pool in the basement and opened an art gallery — hoping the building could also help kickstart young artists’ careers. “I’ve now lived and worked here for 25 years. It’s time for a new chapter outside Manhattan,” Flaherty said.
Designed by architects Neville & Bagge and built in 1907, the building was also home to King Curtis, Aretha Franklin’s musical director and band leader, who was stabbed to death in front of the townhouse in 1971. Rev. Jesse Jackson administered the funeral attended by music icons like Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, who performed. Curtis’s band also worked with Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole and John Lennon. Curtis even worked with Lennon’s on the “Imagine” album on the ground floor of the townhouse, which King was noted for its acoustics because of the pool. Before that, it was a speakeasy.
The listing broker is Rex Gonsalves of Brown Harris Stevens.