NYC’s New School has sold its president’s townhouse for $10.3M

A college degree is a great investment, but so is real estate. 

Manhattan’s New School university just sold off the townhouse that had traditionally been used as the university president’s residence.

City records filed on Monday confirmed the Greenwich Village property sold for $10.3 million — close to half its original asking price. The listing was part of an effort to address the school’s ongoing budget woes.

News of the sale was first reported by Crain’s.

A room of New School faculty erupted into applause early last year when the listing of the 20-foot-wide, Greek Revival Federal Style townhouse was first announced. The valuable portfolio piece hit the market for $20 million in February 2024.

If the Gold Coast home, at 21 W. 11th St., had sold at asking, it would have made a sizable dent in the downtown school’s $52 million budget deficit from the 2024 fiscal year.

“It’s mainly symbolic,” New School professor of economics Sanjay Reddy told the New York Times last year, “but I think it’s still very, very significant because every million counts. As they say, a million here, a million there, and soon you’re talking real money.” 

The five-story home dates back to the mid-1800s. Its 4,038 square feet encompass four bedrooms, a formal dining room, a large chef’s kitchen, a library and other well-appointed public rooms. 

The home’s 103-foot depth terminates in a two-story atrium and a large garden — quite to perk for past presidents. 

Despite its historic value and desirable Greenwich Village location, the townhouse lingered on the market for months. It underwent numerous price cuts, according to Zillow records, dropping to $9.95 million before it entered contract in April.

The property is now in the hands of a trust connected to a high-earning couple. Matthew Lesser, of the brokerage Leslie J. Garfield, most recently represented the sellers.

The move to offload the townhouse was demanded by a vocal contingent of the progressive school’s students and faculty, the New York Times reported last year. Like other small colleges, the New School was reckoning with high inflation, low enrollment and a mounting budget deficit.

The university reported an expected deficit close to $30 million in April of this year, the New School Free Press, but warned in a statement that structural changes and enrollment increases were required to avoid a five-year $100 million deficit. 

Lesser could not be reached by press time. Media representatives for the New School did not respond to a request for comment.