Frank Stella cashes out of EV for $10m

As I was walking down 13th Street last night, I looked up, as I usually do, to see if there were any horrendously ugly sculptures on view. For 218 E 13th Street was for a very long time the studio of Frank Stella, the great minimalist painter turned dreadful maximalist sculptor. The studio is part of the same lot as the townhouse at 123 E 12th Street, where Stella lived.

But now it seems that Stella sold the whole lot in September for $10 million. The property on 13th Street no longer has any sculptures in it; instead, it has a sign saying that it's available for lease. Looks like the owners were asking $900,000 per year, but will now settle for $600,000. Apparently it's "ideal for restaurants, night clubs, art galleries and home furnishings showrooms".

Meanwhile, the townhouse can be leased too, for $300,000 per year (that's $25,000 per month) – or you can just buy it outright, it would seem, since it's on the market separately for $3,500,000. There's an application in with the Department of Buildings to split the lot into two tax lots, so that it can be owned by two different people. Which explains why Elliman doesn't know what the taxes on the townhouse will be yet.

Is Walter de Maria, at 421 E 6th Street, the last major minimalist in the East Village?

Posted by Felix at 16:14 EST