Photographer Lists Picture-Perfect Soho Penthouse at $10 Million

Drawn to expansive spaces, abundant light and cheap rent, in the 1950s and ‘60s, artists and other creative types began to take up residence in the then-derelict 19th-century cast-iron industrial buildings that line the cobblestone streets of New York’s Soho neighborhood. Seventy-some years later, now zoned as a historic district and one of Manhattan’s most gentrified and expensive nabes, it takes the deep pockets of a financier and/or an unusually successful artist to live the life of a loft-dwelling bohemian one of Soho’s former factories and warehouses.

Case and point, financial advisor Hugh Aller and German-born visual artist Renate Aller, the latter most known for monochromatic, large-scale photographs of remote natural forms that evoke memory, time and space. The couple, who met in London and moved to New York in the late 1990s, made their first home in Manhattan in the Bowery, in a building once inhabited by a slew of art and literary lions such as Mark Rothko, William S. Burroughs, and Fernand Leger. They later lived in a Tribeca loft before, per tax records, they purchased a Soho penthouse in 2012 for $3.8 million. Perched just high enough to see over the elaborate cornices of the surrounding rooftops, the fifth-floor loft was previously owned by Oscar-winning social issue documentary filmmaker Deborah Shaffer and noted restaurant architect Larry Bogdanow.

In need of extensive repairs, the Allers eventually embarked on a comprehensive overhaul that preserved antique details such as the original columns and pressed tin ceiling as well as added wide-plank white-oak floorboards, a free-standing eco-friendly wood-burning fireplace, reclaimed wood accents, and professional-grade appliances in the open-plan kitchen. The results were featured in 2019 in Architectural Digest.

Within a restored cast-iron building that dates to 1873, the 3,600-square-foot, three-bedroom and two-bath spread boasts 14-foot ceilings, 13 huge windows with custom oak shutters, and an 1,800-square-foot roof terrace with wrap-around skyline views.

Natural light pours down through a massive skylight in a gallery-like space just inside the front door, while four south-facing windows ensure plenty of daylight in the nearly 750-square-foot great room that amply accommodates the living area, dining space and kitchen.

The larger guest bedroom, with a walk-in closet and en-suite bath, doubles as a library, while a second, smaller guest bedroom does double duty as a study with a pint-sized mezzanine-level office space tucked at the top of an oak staircase. Up a second staircase atop a spacious walk-in bar, a second mezzanine office space overlooks the 32-foot-long great room, while a third staircase in the primary suite climbs to a third mezzanine that overlooks the bedroom as well as the voluminous dressing room.

The loft’s crowning glory is the huge roof terrace, which in addition to sweeping city views offers lots of room to lounge around bathed in the sights and sounds of the city. Automatically irrigated plantings, a stainless-steel outdoor kitchen, and a 200-square-foot dining pergola bedazzled with a sparkling crystal chandelier complete the scene.

Now for sale at $10 million, the bespoke penthouse is available through Nic Bottero and Dustin Crouse of the Erin Boisson Aries Team at Douglas Elliman.