The former home of legendary artist Jasper Johns, north of New York City, is on the market for a very reasonable $600,000.
Johns reportedly entertained art-world titans including the likes of dancer-choreographer Merce Cunningham at this two-bedroom, two-bathroom cabin-like abode in the town of Stony Point, 33 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. John Cage was his neighbor, and photographers Judy Tomkins and Arnold Newman took portraits of him there.
Johns added a second-floor studio with repurposed garage doors that open to the wooded slope outside. Photo: Scott McMenamin. Courtesy of Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty.
Johns paid $48,000 for the 1930s home in 1973 and held on to it until 1995, adding a living room and studio, and residing there in the ’70s and ’80s, according to Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty (whose Jacob Matthews and Jody Atkinson are handling the sale). Several of his blockbuster paintings were made during this period, including Flag (1983), which sold at Sotheby’s New York for $36 million in 2014, Two Flags (1973), and Usuyuki (1979–81)—although it is unclear if they were created in the Stony Brook studio.
The interior is 2,100 square feet, and the house sits on about an acre of forested slope overlooking a brook. The property features a two-car garage, and for those seeking passive income, there’s a detached studio apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows in various rooms take advantage of southern light. Glass garage-style doors on the second-floor studio open to a wooded area, giving the effect of a treehouse.
Jasper Johns at his Stony Brook studio and residence in 1974. (Photo: Michael Tighe/Donaldson Collection/Getty Images)
The house is currently listed as a set for photo shoots on Giggster by host Masha G., who rents it for $100 an hour and says the former barn where Johns entertained folks like Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage, is “hygge as all get-out.” According to her, clients have included Vogue Australia and L’Officiel.
Jasper Johns’s retreat outside of New York City. Photo: Scott McMenamin. Courtesy of Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty.
The artist, who turned 93 this month, was the subject of a historic two-venue retrospective in 2021, staged by both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Artnet News critic Ben Davis wrote, “I find that Jasper Johns’s murky introversion weirdly plays like a splash of contrasting color against the present hyper-pop moment. That’s how I’d make the case for him now.”
Photo: Scott McMenamin. Courtesy of Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty.