This is the house that “Gypsy” built, as the late composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim liked to say — and it’s now on the market for $7 million. That’s far more than a song.
Sondheim, whose awards include eight Tonys, eight Grammys, an Oscar and a Pulitzer, bought this historic Turtle Bay townhouse at 246 E. 49th St. in 1960 following his first Broadway hits writing the lyrics for “West Side Story” and, yes, “Gypsy.”
He lived between here and Connecticut until his death at age 91 in late 2021.
A true New Yorker, Sondheim once said he always lived somewhere between 49th and 82nd streets.
This 19-foot-wide townhouse is 5,690 square feet, and comes with seven bedrooms and 3½ baths.
Design details include hardwood floors, crown moldings, multiple woodburning fireplaces, stained glass and columns.
The turn-of-the-century, five-story home is part of Turtle Bay Gardens, an exclusive enclave of 20 homes created in 1920 from a group of 1860s townhouses that share a common garden, which is only accessible from the residences themselves.
The area is on 48th and 49th streets between Second and Third avenues. Sondheim’s longtime next-door neighbor was Hollywood icon Katharine Hepburn.
Most of Sondheim’s greatest works were created here, from “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (1962) to “Company” (1970), “Follies” (1971) and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (1979). He also once said that he wrote most of the music and lyrics for the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Sunday in the Park with George” (1983) on his terrace, which faces the shared garden.
The home boasts a wrought-iron gate that leads to a wood-paneled foyer with a midnight blue-tiled, barrel-vaulted ceiling, notes the listing. From the foyer, there’s a 32-foot living room with chevron-patterned wood floors.
There’s also a formal dining room, floor-to-ceiling windows, a chef’s kitchen and French doors that lead to the garden — as well as a second-floor music studio with a music library and a baby grand piano.
Next up: a solarium with a wood arch and original stained-glass windows opening to a 30-foot terrace overlooking the garden.
A fourth floor is taken up by a main bedroom suite with custom built-ins and an ensuite spa-like bath, while the fifth floor is currently a floor-through studio apartment with a kitchenette and a terrace with garden views.
The listing brokers are Michael J. Franco, Miriam Richards, Greg Holzmann and Veronica Hinman of Compass.