Andy Warhol bought 1342 Lexington Avenue in NYC in 1959 for a total cost of—swallow before reading—$60K, living there with his mother for the next 15 years. In a studio on the garden floor, he created many of his most iconic works, most notably the Campbell soup can series. First built in 1889 by the architect Henry J. Hardenbergh (who had more than his own 15 minutes of fame being the architect of both the Plaza Hotel and the Dakota), this smaller jewel, at only 18 feet wide and 43 feet deep, has many of the same exterior detailing as its older kin. When Warhol moved out (actually getting a bigger place not too far away on East 66th Street), his business manager, Fredrick W. Hughes, leased the home, ultimately buying it from the Warhol Estate in 1989 for $593K.
The property last sold in 2011 for $3.55M and has since received a full overhaul. A new ground-floor kitchen (ironically, the old studio floor where the aforementioned soup can paintings were created) nixes the longstanding third-floor kitchen completely, adding some exceptionally well laid-out bedrooms. (See both the before and after floorplans in the gallery above.) Current ask: $5.795M, so aspiring artists need not apply.
—Spencer Lamm
· 1342 Lexington Avenue [Street Easy]
· 2001 Listing [Street Easy]
· A Shrine to 15-Minute Fame [NYT]
· On Andy Warhol's Birthday, A Look Back at His Real Estate [Curbed National]