Inside an Artfully Updated 19th-Century Manhattan Townhouse

Designed by architect Ralph Samuel Townsend, built on spec as a single-family home, and completed in 1885 in a Neo-Grec style with Renaissance Revival flourishes, 138 West 82 nd Street in was first owned by minister-turned-real estate mogul Samuel “Lucky Sam” Colcord. By the middle of the 20 th century, the handsome brownstone had been chopped up into a rooming house, and in the early 1980s, it was reconfigured with one apartment on each of its five floors.

Finally, in 2004, records show the building was acquired for $3.45 million by venture capitalist Dylan Hixon and artist Camomile Hixon, who undertook a comprehensive restoration and update that, according to the Daytonian in Manhattan, included “the refabrication of the [original] stoop railings,” which had been removed in an ear