A Converted West Village Stable That’s Had Only Two Owners

When the late writer Mary Cantwell bought at 72 Horatio Street in the early 1980s, the neighborhood was still gentrifying, located on the edge of the Meatpacking District on a block she associated with what she called “the garbage pier,” where the city unloaded its trash. Coming home late, she’d grip her keys and avoid eye contact with prostitutes, as she wrote in her 1995 memoir. By day, the area was home to workers in “bloodstained coats.” Pastis hadn’t yet arrived, and the Whitney wasn’t a thing. Neither were the luxury shops on Gansevoort. Buying wasn’t just a bet on the neighborhood; it was a bet that she could live in an apartment she had seen only in a half-built state, when “oil stains had sunk into the cement floor and iron shutters were closed over its tall windows.”

The exterior. The building was a stable for horses with ramps to the stalls above before a 1980s conversion to an eight-unit apartment building.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

The four-story building had last been a garage, but it was built in 1907 as a stable for horses. There was a handsome brick façade with arches over the windows and a stone horse head on the second floor. The developer Mark Blau bought the place in 1979, carving the floors up to fit two apartments each and making 72 Horatio a calling card for his career converting industrial buildings downtown. (Blau kept a unit on the top floor for himself.) When the co-op opened, every unit had a working fireplace, exposed brick, and original details — beams or columns — but the ground-floor apartments were the only spaces with high ceilings, and Cantwell chose the one in back, where she would have the quiet to write her columns for the Times and a view of the backyards of Jane Street. The first floor helped for aging in place and the high ceilings, she wrote, made the space feel “limitless.”

Cantwell rose over a 23-year career at Mademoiselle to become managing editor. By the time she bought on Horatio Street, she had written two books and won a role on the editorial board of the Times. When she died in 2000, her estate sold the apartment to a divorcée who bought it as a “bachelor pad,” albeit one that would allow his two children room enough to stay over, too, says the bachelor in question, who asked not to be named. He is now selling for $5.75 million. He says he loved the space right away but brought in architects Carey Maloney and Hermes Mallea, known for a traditional American vibe, who made it feel less like a garage and more like a Hotel des Artistes duplex. Cream-colored cabinets with frosted old glass face the massive 27-by-30-foot great room, which is open to a dining room paneled in vertical beams. The creamy cabinetry continues in the kitchen, which looks into the living room with a long bar top — ideal for a party. (The owner has squeezed in 100 people before, he says.)

The renovation made it more difficult to imagine horses tromping through the space, or bohemians. But the buyers are still glossy Village types; this summer, the actress Camila Morrone bought a two-bedroom on the third floor for $2.95 million. That figure might not have shocked Cantwell; a jump in values in the 1990s inspired her to consider selling. But she resisted. “I had labored for this place as doggedly as Jacob had labored for Rachel,” she wrote. “I do not want to imagine an elsewhere.”

The ground-floor unit, in the back of the building, has 17-foot ceilings and a working fireplace. It faces the yards of townhomes on Jane Street.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

The entrance to the unit is on the righthand side in this image. One set of steps off the foyer leads down into the living area. Another leads up to an open den on the mezzanine level.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

An open dining area and a cutout to the kitchen made it easier to squeeze 100 people in the space for a party, as the current owner once did.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

The column in the kitchen is original. The cabinetry is custom.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

This dining room, just off the kitchen, is open to the living area and walled with wood paneling.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

The largest of two downstairs bedroom. The furniture is custom.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

Stairs off the living area lead to a lofted floor with two sitting areas, an office, and a third bedroom. The trunk is a Chinese antique that came from a shop nearby on Jane Street.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

An upstairs bedroom with a lofted area for reading or study.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

The primary bath.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios

When the current owner bought 25 years ago, his brokers gifted him this piece, in honor of the building’s history as a livery stable.
Photo: Edward Menashy/Evan Joseph Studios