The Twins
There is a fun historical lore about these two houses being built by a father who was trying to bring his two sparring daughters together. So he built them each a house with a common yard hoping they would eventually come back together. How that story got started seems a mystery. ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/the-story-of-th...
The truth is, a milkman from New Jersey saw this available plot of land, bought it from the city and built two identical houses to rent Originally they were two story, single family, but some where along the way a third floor was added and they were converted to apartments. I've only known them as single family.
In my lifetime in NYC, the house on the left was renovated in the late 80's I think by a gay couple who made it beautiful hanging wreaths in each window at Christmas and planting window boxes bursting with color the rest of the year. They sold to people in the wine industry with a vineyard in Napa Valley.
For years this couple supplied our Ye Old Village Fair fundraiser, with lots of delicious wine and they too decorated the windows at Christmas. Eventually, they moved full time to CA, selling the house to a very successful woman artist who upgraded the house to her liking in the mid 2000's.
The house on the right was owned by a woman who eventually I became friends with. She loved architecture and history and sometime in the late 60's or early 70's, she and her husband bought the house where she and her family lived. until 2021, when she sold the house to the woman artist next door.
The house has gone under about a $4 million make over and it looks beautiful. Both houses now look almost identical, as they did when they were built originally. There was some discussion that a tunnel would be built under the garden to connect the two buildings, but it is our understanding, they could not do it. I do not know why.
The Twins
There is a fun historical lore about these two houses being built by a father who was trying to bring his two sparring daughters together. So he built them each a house with a common yard hoping they would eventually come back together. How that story got started seems a mystery. ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2017/12/24/the-story-of-th...
The truth is, a milkman from New Jersey saw this available plot of land, bought it from the city and built two identical houses to rent Originally they were two story, single family, but some where along the way a third floor was added and they were converted to apartments. I've only known them as single family.
In my lifetime in NYC, the house on the left was renovated in the late 80's I think by a gay couple who made it beautiful hanging wreaths in each window at Christmas and planting window boxes bursting with color the rest of the year. They sold to people in the wine industry with a vineyard in Napa Valley.
For years this couple supplied our Ye Old Village Fair fundraiser, with lots of delicious wine and they too decorated the windows at Christmas. Eventually, they moved full time to CA, selling the house to a very successful woman artist who upgraded the house to her liking in the mid 2000's.
The house on the right was owned by a woman who eventually I became friends with. She loved architecture and history and sometime in the late 60's or early 70's, she and her husband bought the house where she and her family lived. until 2021, when she sold the house to the woman artist next door.
The house has gone under about a $4 million make over and it looks beautiful. Both houses now look almost identical, as they did when they were built originally. There was some discussion that a tunnel would be built under the garden to connect the two buildings, but it is our understanding, they could not do it. I do not know why.