(Photo: Courtesy of Corcoran Group)

102 Greene Street
Three-story, 8,968-square-foot townhouse.
Asking Price: $8.5 million.
Brokers: Wendy Maitland, Scott Harris, and Jill Camac, the Corcoran Group.

E very year, there’s a little less of the artist-friendly (as opposed to shopping-friendly) Soho of yore, and this Greene Street building is just about to make the transition. It was the longtime home and studio of Buffie Johnson, an abstract painter who was at the center of the New York art world at mid-century. During her years in residence, Tennessee Williams and Ernest Hemingway came by for dinner; Carl Jung stopped in for a chat. Johnson continued to work until her death in August, and traveled in rarefied circles that also included Gore Vidal, Alice B. Toklas, and Johnson’s ex-husband, writer Gerald Sykes. Today, it’s a different kind of rarefied: It’s one of the very few single-family homes below Houston Street, making it a particularly coveted property, with a price to match.

Related:

• Archive: “Real Estate”
• Articles by S.Jhoanna Robledo
• Table of Contents: Nov 20, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!