Where Hypercubes Met Square Footage

The apartment of the late Madeleine L’Engle, the beloved author of A Wrinkle in Time and 61 other books for adults and children, is about to get a new owner. L’Engle and her husband, the actor Hugh Franklin, spent more than four decades living in the eight-room co-op at the Clebourne, a Beaux-Arts building on West 105th Street. The apartment, which has ten-foot ceilings and Hudson River views, went on the market fairly soon after L’Engle’s death in September. According to the broker, Nan Shipley of Rand Realty (she partnered on the deal with Martin Krasnoff), it sold fast, going to contract within a couple of weeks. The new owners, who turn out to be L’Engle fans, were thrilled with its history, though she adds that the space itself is what sold them. “It was the cherry on top of the sundae,” she says. “They fell in love with the apartment and the aura.” Shipley wouldn’t say what the final price was, though she confirms that “it went over asking.” That original figure: $3.895 million.

Where Hypercubes Met Square Footage