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How long a minute is depends which side of the bathroom door you’re on. Now it appears that how much a $1m loss matters depends how eager you are for your business to be concluded.
That’s pretty eager apparently – and unsurprisingly – if you’re Lily Allen and David Harbour. The former couple have just accepted $7m for the Brooklyn townhouse they listed for $8m in October.
The question is, despite it being such a steal, who would want to live in the four-storey brownstone? It may not technically be a crime scene, but a marriage was murdered there, and each room is surely haunted by the ghost of open relationships. Plus, you’d wonder if every friend who visited really wanted to see you or was just coming to gawp at the bathroom carpet.
This home is almost as well-known as its former residents. Every inch of it was proudly revealed in a 2023 Architectural Digest video, which we lapped up at the time but now insist was full of warning signs we noticed all along. (Harbour answering the door saying, “Oh God. What the hell are you doing here? I mean, last time I was single and I was living on the Lower East. I have a family now. Kids, I mean this is so embarrassing. You look good though. Come on in,” has, to put it mildly, not aged well.)
And, of course, Allen immortalised it on her album, detailing the purchase in the title track, before it became the clashing patterned backdrop for the events of the further 13 songs. This was the site of her own personal nightmare. If those walls could talk, they’d be sobbing too hard to get a word out.
Maybe the buyer has other plans, which include not missing a trick. Perhaps they’re going to leave the distinctive interior exactly as is, whack a blue plaque on the front, and open a West End Girl Museum. Watch out MoMA here comes MoMAdeline. Would visit, obviously.
Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
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