Upper East Side townhouse owned by Aby Rosen hits the market for $20M

The 100 East 53rd Street developer purchased the townhouse for $8.4 million in 2004

By Zoe Rosenberg@zoe_rosenberg Jul 6, 2017, 11:32am EDT

As drama plays out at one of developer Aby Rosen’s Upper East Side properties of interest, another of his townhouses in the neighborhood has hit the market. After expressing interest in purchasing the 12,000-square-foot townhouse at 5 East 80th Street from the country of Niger, from which he’s been renting the property for 15 years, a townhouse owned by Rosen at 16 East 78th Street has quietly hit the market asking $19.95 million.

Public records show that Rosen purchased the townhouse for $8.4 million in 2004. If the story here is at all similar to the story of the townhouse at 3 East 94th Street, purchased by Rosen in 2005 for $6.8 million then revamped and sold in 2010 for $18.5 million, the East 78th Street townhouse has likely undergone some major upgrades. But the listing, with Douglas Elliman, makes no mention of any sort of renovation, instead touting its “inspirational sense of space” and “generously proportioned” layout.

Here’s what we know about the 6,300-square-foot townhouse: It has four bedrooms, five full bathrooms and two half bathrooms, a full-floor master suite, an elevator, laundry in the basement, over a handful of walk-in closets, a garden and a terrace, and a rooftop solarium that lets out onto a north-facing as well as a south-facing terrace. The asking price puts the townhouse’s price per square foot at $3,166.

Listing pictures from the property show that a fair amount of modern and contemporary art hang in the townhouse—Aby Rosen is a noted collector—but it’s unclear if Rosen took up residence in the townhouse at any time.