Molly Ringwald and Alexi Lubomirski (Getty Images, Credit Cristina Cote from the Cote team)
With any luck, an East Village townhouse owned by Polish royalty — and formerly the Hollywood teen drama royalty — could reinvigorate the market for such neighborhood real estate.
Alexi Lubomirski and his wife Giada listed their two-family home at 122 East 10th Street for $9.2 million on Wednesday. The recently renovated townhouse was the home of actress Molly Ringwald, star of the mid-1980s hits “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” and “Pretty in Pink” until she sold her unit to the Lubomirskis in 2016.
Cristina Cote and her mother, Victoria Terri-Cote, of boutique real estate firm Cote Luxury Real Estate have the listing.
Cristina Cote said the pandemic has given a high priority to flexible living spaces, which townhouses like 122 East 10th Street offer. Designed by James Renwick Jr., who also designed St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the house is divided into a lower quadruplex and a duplex on the upper floors.
“They want separation and privacy, but comfort and closeness in the same building,” Cote said.
A fashion photographer best known for photographing Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, Lubomirski has built his career capturing images of the likes of Beyonce, Demi Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow for publications like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
He is also a descendant of Polish princes, although the use of noble titles is no longer allowed in Poland.
The townhouse market has been ablaze in recent months, with two neighborhood records falling since April. In Fort Greene, a townhouse contracted for $1 million over asking price is poised to break the local price record; the other is in Hudson Square.
According to Matthew Lesser of Leslie Garfield, a townhouse brokerage firm, limited supply and the desire for more private homes with outdoor spaces are driving demand for townhomes, particularly in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“Downtown is the strongest townhouse market in all of New York,” Lesser said. “There is clearly a strong demand for finished products.”
The city’s most expensive townhouses used to be on the Upper East Side, just a block from Central Park.
While rising interest rates and uncertainty in stock markets have slowed the housing market recently, the townhouse market, a sub-sector of the city’s luxury market, has not.
“Our buyers are not as price sensitive as [buyers at] cheaper price points,” Lesser said. “A falling stock market will lower consumer confidence; we just haven’t seen it yet.”
While it’s unclear what the Lubomirskis’ home will bring, it could be the most expensive two-family home to sell in the East Village in years. The asking price is within $1 million of the $9.9 million selling price for 327 East 9th Street, the most expensive multi-family home in the neighborhood as of May 2017, according to data collected by TRD Pro.
The Lubomirskis’ home was recently renovated with reclaimed oak floors that were once Hudson Valley horse fences and Vermont Danby marble. Original details such as the original chandelier in the kitchen have been preserved.
Ringwald, 54, is still an actress and has had a long and successful career, but hasn’t maintained her teenage fame, which she found in the three John Hughes films from 1984-1986. According to Wikipedia, she turned down the female lead roles for “Pretty Woman” and “Ghost” in the early 1990s, which made Julia Roberts and Demi Moore household names, respectively.
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