Wikimapia is a multilingual open-content collaborative map, where anyone can create place tags and share their knowledge.

Katharine Hepburn's former townhouse (244 East 49th Street) (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York / East 49th Street, 244
 townhouse  Add category

4-story townhouse originally completed in the 1860s, and rebuilt in 1920 as part of the Turtle Bay Gardens complex. It is one of 20 townhouses with differing but complementary designs surrounding a central area of gardens. The architects Edward C. Dean and William L. Bottomley altered the brownstones in two major ways: they shaved off the old facades, replacing them with light, pastel stucco in a variety of Flemish and Regency styles facing the street and Mediterranean styles facing the interior. And they reoriented the houses, placing the service areas on the street and the principal living and entertainment areas facing the garden.

The 3-bay facade is surfaced in brown stucco, behind an iron fence. The ground floor has segmental-arched openings, with a window in the middle and black wood-and-glass paneled doors at the outer bays. The upper floors have 2-over-4 windows, with an extra two panes joined at the top of the 2nd-floor windows. The middle bay at the 2nd floor has paneled pilasters with brackets supporting a broken pediment and urn. A wrought-iron balcony with basket-style railing fronts the entire 2nd floor. The facade is topped by three sections of balustrade (with pineapple urns topping the two middle parapet sections), linking the gables roofs of the two neighboring buildings.

The house was home to actress Katharine Hepburn for more than 60 years. Ms. Hepburn's estate sold the brownstone after her death in 2003--it is still privately owned. The city honored Hepburn by renaming the nearby intersection of Second Avenue and East 49th Street “Katharine Hepburn Place”.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°45'15"N   73°58'10"W
This article was last modified 4 years ago