“Perched on the highest elevation in Manhattan, the neighborhood feels like a slice of Colonial Williamsburg airlifted into the city. The Palladian Morris-Jumel Mansion, built in 1765, is the oldest house in Manhattan, and was associated with George Washington and Aaron Burr. The mansion’s tree-shaded grounds offer sweeping vistas across the Harlem River to Yankee Stadium and down to the spires of Midtown, glittering like Oz in the distance. There’s also the implausibly quaint cobblestone street Sylvan Terrace, a single block lined with wood-framed row houses from 1882. The majestic brownstones of West 160th and West 162nd Streets that frame the area complete a pocket of almost startling gentility wedged between uppermost Harlem and Washington Heights.” John Strausbaugh.
New York Times. November 28, 2005. Home is Where The Art Is (and the Bookstores, Too)
Your pied a terre on Sugar Hill. The self contained garden apartment shares the garden floor and private entrance of Jumel Terrace Books, an antiquarian bookshop specializing in Harlem Heights local history from the Revolution through the jazz-age Renaissance to its vibrant now. The townhouse is directly across the street from the Morris-Jumel Mansion, George Washington’s headquarters for 1776’s Battle of Harlem Heights and home to the infamous grand horizontal, Madame Jumel. At the time Duke Ellington dubbed the house “The Crown of Sugar Hill,” the immediate neighborhood was also home to W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Count Basie, Lena Horne, Coleman Hawkins, Mary Lou Williams, Thurgood Marshall, and dozens of other Jazz Masters.
The apartment features full kitchen and bath (tub and shower), sitting room with single bed and a large bedroom with an antique full-sized bed, desk, wardrobe, dining table, cable television, internet access and a full ornamental garden with a gas grill. Wine and dine al fresco on Sunday afternoons as the sounds of Marjorie Elliot’s Parlor Jazz waif from her near by apartment.
A library room with a spectacular 19th century Queen sized brass bed and private bath on the second floor of the townhouse, with cable tv/internet and access to coffee facilities in the main library, is also available. The accommodations are available at day, weekend, weekly, and monthly rates. The house’s photo shoot, conference and party facilities rates are available on inquiry.
Enjoy local museums, entertainments and Sugar Hill cuisine, old New York charms, and easy transportation (subways and buses within two blocks, car services readily available.)
To make a reservation please contact Kurt or Camilla Thometz at privatelibrary@msn.com
or call
(212) 928-9525.