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The six-story, 33-foot-wide property at 45 East 78th Street, which has spent the last three-plus decades anchoring one of the country’s most influential contemporary art operations, is officially up for grabs.
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The family of the late art dealer Robert Mnuchin is asking $35 million for the 17,600-square-foot townhouse, the Wall Street Journal first reported. Robert — father of former Treasury Secretary and current Liberty Strategic Capital founder Steven Mnuchin — died in December at age 92.Robert and his second wife, Adriana, bought the property in 1983 and spent roughly 18 months renovating it before moving in. The bottom two floors were eventually converted to gallery space, opening as C&M Arts in 1992, later rebranding as L&M Arts, and finally landing on Mnuchin Gallery in 2013. Last week, Sotheby’s sold $166.3 million worth of art from Robert’s personal collection.
The Mnuchins didn’t actually live above the shop for long. Robert’s daughter Valerie — half-sister to Steven — told the WSJ that her mother grew tired of the arrangement after about a dozen years and the family relocated. She also recalled the basement hosting nightly family dinners and a handful of her high school parties.
The building itself has been through several lives. Constructed around World War I, it has cycled through identities as a single-family mansion, a college dormitory, and a psychiatrist’s office before the Mnuchins took it over.
At 33 feet wide and six stories tall, the property pencils out to roughly $1,989 per square foot. Above the former gallery floors sit a cellar level, a garden level, and three upper floors offering up to nine bedrooms, four full bathrooms, a powder room, a kitchenette, a balcony, and a guest suite that opens onto a 1,335-square-foot rooftop terrace.
Adam Modlin of the Modlin Group has the listing. Steven Mnuchin declined to comment.
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