An idiosyncratically opulent duplex loft in Manhattan’s art gallery-filled Chelsea neighborhood owned by Gerard Butler has come to market with an asking price of $5.995 million. The bearded and beau-hunky Scotsman, best known for his voice over role in the wildly successful animated franchise “How To Train Your Dragon” and for his starring role in the 2006 blockbuster action-fantasy film “300,” which hauled in almost half of a billion dollars in worldwide box office receipts, has owned the loft since 2004 when he snapped it up for $2.575 million.
Listing details sniffed out by the New York Post show the co-operative-style loft, on a high floor of a low-rise early 20th century manufacturing building converted to a boutique apartment house, has two bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms in 3,150-square-feet of lavishly wrought interior spaces designed by acclaimed architect Alexander Gorlin and decorated by designer Elvis Restaino. Listing descriptions describe the extravagant décor as having a “highly customized ‘modern vintage’ motif” that combines elegant Old World architectural details with luxurious modern-day creature comforts. Butler himself described the loft in the May 2010 issue of Architectural Digest as “bohemian old-world rustic chateau with a taste of baroque.”
Carved wood doors open to an entrance gallery that features antique stone tiles underfoot and a ceiling fresco overhead that depicts the rape of Ganymede. The vast, open-plan living space has a 13-foot-high exposed wood ceiling, lustrous wide-plank wood floors, moody hand-distressed plaster walls and a plethora of evocative carved wood columns. An immense medieval-style wood and iron dining table sits under a glitzy assemblage of vintage crystal chandeliers; an intimate lounge with a deep-cushioned sofa and a couple of leather club chairs are arranged in a corner under mammoth, brick-framed arched casement windows; a home theatre area offers a drop-down movie screen framed by a pair of intricately carved wood columns imported from India; and the open kitchen juxtaposes sleek, up-to-date stainless steel appliances with cabinetry custom-crafted from rustic reclaimed barn wood and a textured stone back splash fashioned from the leftover floor tiles in the foyer.
Also on the lower level are a railroad-style suite of small, interconnected rooms that include an pint-sized office, a small guest bedroom, a large laundry room and a discrete bathroom while the master bedroom, with closet lined dressing area and spacious bathroom, privately occupies the entire second floor and opens to an approximately 1,200-square-foot private terrace.
Other residents of the unassuming but tony building include restaurateur Will Guidara, co-owner of the internationally acclaimed and brutally expensive four star eatery Eleven Madison Park, and Christina Tosi, chef, founder and owner of the swanky bakery Momfuku Milk Bar, who together purchased a generously terraced two-bedroom penthouse last year for $3.7 million from influential fashion stylist and clothing designer Lori Goldstein.
Butler reportedly owns a three-bedroom apartment in his native Glasgow as well as a turreted Spanish villa in the hills of L.A.’s Los Feliz purchased in 2008 for $3.25 million and available for sale outside the Multiple Listing Service for more than a year at $4.395 million. In the spring of 2016 Butler splashed out $6.45 million for a gated and serenely private 1.67-acre spread on Malibu’s celeb-favored Point Dume that includes an organic-modern, Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired three-bedroom and 2.5-bathroom main residence, a self-contained one-bedroom and one-bathroom guest cottage, a swimming pool set into tropical gardens and a deeded access to a shared private path that winds through a shallow ravine to the beach.
exterior photo: Street Easy; listing photos and floor plan: Private Client Realty
