The Israeli artist Ilana Goor updated a turn-of-the-century townhouse on East 75th Street. Listing photos show it stuffed with the couple’s eclectic art, including some of Goor’s pieces.
Photo: Christies International Real Estate Group
178 East 75th Street is a six-story townhouse with five bedrooms, a roof-deck, and gargoyles peering over a garage door. Listing photos show the door open, and, just inside, a Rolls is parked on glossy terra-cotta tiles, the centerpiece of a room with double-high ceilings and a catwalk, teeming with the widest possible range of eccentric art: There’s a medievalish tapestry, rainbow-bright abstractions, and a portrait of a sneering woman, surrounded by cats. Upstairs, there are ancient-looking urns over a kitchen sink, a metal crow on a newel post, and a pink and blue sheep atop built-ins.
The townhouse is owned by Leonard Lowengrub and Ilana Goor, and it’s not even their biggest or most art-stuffed home. That would be their house in Jaffa, in Goor’s native Israel, a former synagogue and inn meant for pilgrims they bought in the 1980s. The couple, who split their time between the U.S. and Israel, keep an apartment on a top floor. The rest of the space is devoted to the Ilana Goor Museum, which displays the couple’s own collection — a Giacometti and an Albers — alongside work by Goor herself. She sculpts gloopy abstracts in bronze and iron but has also welded collections of steampunk-esque metal chairs and belt buckles, on sale in a gift shop alongside photos of Goor sidling up to Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama. “Actually, the museum is more popular than me,” she told state media. “Sometimes I’m so surprised that I own it.”
The museum in Israel. It opened in 1995 and shows the couple’s collection and work made by Goor herself.
Photo: Hwo/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
Goor is from a prominent Israeli family — her grandfather founded an art school in Jerusalem — but the money that allowed the couple to create a temple to themselves reportedly came from Lowengrub, who “brought an infusion of capital to the relationship,” according to a 2001 piece in The Jerusalem Report that described Lowengrub as “her boyishly good-looking husband and business partner.” That infusion of capital likely came from the company he founded in 1974, Theatre Refreshment Co., which runs concessions at theaters across the country.
Ilana Goor, who seems to be wearing some of the jewelry she designed. She has also designed handbags, belt buckles, and chairs.
Photo: Michael DeFreitas Middle East/Alamy Stock Photo
Lowengrub bought the townhouse on 75th in 1977. Once part of a row of 1880 Italianate brownstones, it was converted at turn of the century into an “automobile stable,” with a garage door that cuts into the ground floor, and upper floors meant to be leased as offices. The downstairs garage must have been the draw for an owner who bought it in 1946 and turned the commercial space into a live-work art studio. That likely enticed Goor, who works in metal and iron and oversaw another major renovation of the building, according to the listing agent, Smitha Ramchandani. “It was completely gutted and redone,” said Ramchandani, who cited the sunroom windows behind the living area, an updated roof-deck with bird’s-eye views of the neighborhood, and stripped-down, exposed-brick walls throughout. (The sellers declined to comment.) Over the years, the couple used the space to host prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon. The couple have tried to sell before. In 2007, they listed for $15 million; in 2008, for $22.5 million; and in 2013, for $19 million. Ramchandani, their agent, said they’re selling now because “they’re moving on to a different phase in life.”
The townhouse was reportedly renovated in 1978, a year after the couple bought it. Their agent said Goor oversaw the renovation herself. She replaced an Italianate-brownstone exterior with nubby brick, replaced old windows with wide plate glass, and added iron discs and gargoyles. The listing photo shows the couple’s Rolls-Royce parked just inside.
Photo: Christies International Real Estate Group
A lawsuit might be spurring that change. In February, a judge certified that a suit filed against Lowengrub’s Theatre Refreshment Co. may become a class action. The suit was originally filed by a bartender who says he was paid below the minimum wage for tipped workers, was not given a fair cut of tips, and was punished after he alerted management that the company wasn’t reporting tips to the IRS. Now, more bartenders who worked for the concession operator are being recruited.
Goor and Lowengrub are asking $37.75 million for the townhouse. That’s $15.25 million more than they asked just over ten years ago and $27 million more than a neighbor is asking for a townhouse next door. That townhouse might be one floor shorter, but it’s two feet wider, and recently updated. Ramchandani said the higher price accounts for unique features, including the garage. But in 2013, a house with a garage door only two doors down sold for $13.25 million — just over a third of the price Goor and Lowenbrub are asking.
Urns over the kitchen sink. The listing photo gives a clue as to who is selling; a painting over the fridge shows Goor’s namesake museum.
Photo: Christies International Real Estate Group
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