"The grand 43-foot-wide mansion at 323 West 80th Street was once a single-family home 21 rooms spread across 11,000 square feet with a gymnasium and a solarium, a fountain and a loggia. It was a layout that perhaps made sense for the personal attorney to the Vanderbilts or the wife of a 19th-century real-estate tycoon, but when Bill and Donna DeSeta bought the building in 1970, it had been chopped up and left to squatters."
"Bill DeSeta had built artists lofts across Soho, designed clubs (the Tin Angel), and was working as a set designer in theater. It made sense the couple would do the work themselves. Friends were happy to swing hammers to help turn the second and third floors into the owners' duplex and create six rental apartments above and two below."
"Finding tenants was easy thanks to Donna's day job managing a modeling agency that brought in beautiful people from across the country who didn't always have a place to stay once they got to New York. The first tenants in the building were all these models, she remembers. And the models attracted hockey players and all kinds of sports figures. Donna had previously worked as an actor (like her sister, Bernadette Peters),"
The grand 43-foot-wide mansion at 323 West 80th Street was originally a 21-room single-family house with 11,000 square feet, a gymnasium, solarium, fountain and loggia. The Renaissance Revival limestone-and-brick facade featured curves, columns, leaded glass, ironwork, arched windows and rough stone lintels. Bill and Donna DeSeta bought the building in 1970 for $170,000 after it had been chopped up and occupied by squatters. Bill, with experience designing lofts, clubs and theater sets, and Donna, who managed a modeling agency and had acted, led the restoration. Friends helped create an owners' duplex and multiple rental apartments that attracted models, athletes and performers.
Read at www.curbed.com
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