The historic Staten Island mansion that has in its most recent years served as a backdrop for high fashion shoots and music videos is still looking for a buyer. The landmarked Italianate Revival mansion at 2475 Richmond Road in Egbertville came onto the market in the spring, hoping to woo potential buyers with its charming, yet eerie half-dilapidated demeanor. Still on the market and asking the same $2.31 million some five months later, the house needed an endorsement, and it got one from the New York Times.
A new Times profile of the house details its history as the "Grey Gardens" of Staten Island, a borrowed moniker reserved for homes whose owners recede into them obsessively. The ladies of the manor were Paula and Emilie Mayer, two unmarried sisters who, by the end of their tenure, refused to leave the house, using baskets on a pulley system through the home's windows to receive groceries and mail. Needless to say, the house fell into its state under the women's lack of supervision. The sisters also spent their saner days in the house, Paula painting images of their travels on the walls, perhaps the same crumbling illustrations that wrap around the home's stairwell today. The Mayer women were brought to the house by their father, Gustav, a confectioner and one of the father's of the Nabisco sugar wafer. Relics of his sweet trade can still be found in the home's basement.
More recently, though, the house has taken on a different kind of industry. Of the fashion shoots, with faces like Lauren Hutton and Mary-Kate Olsen, that have become normal at the home, a next-door neighbor divulges, "It's fabulous, like living on the red carpet." The home's owner, who renovated and lives on the first floor with his family, doesn't seem all too anxious to sell. While, according to the Times, a lifestyle change sounds appealing, the owner would just as happily stay put.
· A House Fit for Murder, Madmen and Fashion Models [NYT]
· Listing: 2475 Richmond Road [Citi Habitats]
· Staten Island's Eerie, Historic Haunted House Wants $1.74M [Curbed]
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