Brown Harris Stevens
An Upper East Side townhouse with history aplenty — and where martinis are delivered always shaken, never stirred — is back on the market for $9.5 million.
The seller is renown plastic surgeon Z. Paul Lorenc, whose parents were recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their role in rescuing 12 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.
Former owners of the six-story townhouse at 161 E. 74th St. include the late A&P heiress Josephine “Jo” Hartford Bryce — a pilot, pianist, linguist, legendary hostess and equestrian, whose collection of husbands included a spy, a prince, a White Russian and a conventional rich American.
In her youth, Jo was photographed by Cecil Beaton and painted by Salvador Dali.
Her fourth and final husband, of 35 years, was John Felix Charles Bryce, an Eton-educated British intelligence officer during World War II. Bryce was a close friend of James Bond spy novel master Ian Fleming, who also worked as a British spy and officer in the Royal Navy’s intelligence department during World War II. In fact, Fleming created and named Bond’s fictional best friend Felix after Bryce, according to reports.
The former two-family home — configured as a 20-foot-wide single family residence — boasts a double-height ceiling and views of the St. Jean Baptiste Church’s top floor greenhouse and private gardens.
The elegant brownstone also comes with seven bedrooms — and 1,200 square feet of outdoor space, including a garden, terrace and a roof deck.
Lorenc bought the residence for around $1.6 million in 1995. It’s been on and off the market since 2009, when it first asked $17 million.
Built around 1910, the property also boasts six original woodburning fireplaces and an elevator. There’s also a glass atrium with 18-foot-6-inch ceiling heights.
The listing notes that a brewmaster built the home for his four children and there are niches on each side of the main living room where a passage between the homes once stood.
Now it’s an “architectural detail” used to display art and sculpture, the listing notes.
The listing broker is Victoria Vinokur of Brown Harris Stevens.