STEPHEN SONDHEIM'S HOUSE, TURTLE BAY GARDENS, E. 49TH STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

A simple sofa upholstered in white duck cloth, a black leather recliner, and a large wooden coffee table. A turtleneck sweater, linen pants, and often a red jacket or scarf. Whether it came to decorating or fashion, Katharine Hepburn had her own signature style. 

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She valued comfort and practicality while making everything look perfectly pulled together.

That makes it all the more fun to discover that her former Manhattan townhouse has been re-decorated by someone with a distinct signature style of his own. This is designer Garrow Kedigian's apartment in New York's Carlyle Hotel:

His style has been described as exuberant, jubilant, and playful as he "bestows his brand of high-gloss wizardry."

Ready to see his wizardry at work in Katharine's place? Here are the befores and afters:

Katharine and her then-husband Ludlow Ogden Smith bought the townhouse in 1931, a year before she started her career with MGM. She lived here and at her Connecticut home Fenwick until her death in 2003.

Here's the floorplan so that we can get our bearings. The second floor living room is pictured above.

This is the library/media room across from it:

The dining room is on the first floor:

The kitchen is across from it:

This is the third floor's sitting room/bedroom/office:

Across from it is the main bedroom (no before pictures of it or the other two bedrooms):

It's listed as a four bedroom, four bathroom home in 4,560 square feet.

Here are before and after shots of one of the bathrooms:

Given that the home has been so wonderfully redecorated recently (except for that bathroom with no toilet paper), it was a challenge to "if it were mine" it, but I got an idea from this 1992 interview with Katharine (KH):

It made me think that the living room...

might benefit from a little more sunlight:

{Miles Redd and David Kaihoi}

I dove into the history of Turtle Bay Gardens and its developer Charlotte Hunnewell Martin here and here, if you're interested. I showed this picture of Katharine Hepburn raking the gardens then:

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It was this devotion to her neighborhood that led Turtle Bay Garden residents to dedicate a namesake garden to her in 1997. 

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It's just a stone's throw away from the townhouse, located in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

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Turtleneck, red jacket, presumably linen pants; signature style.

The before photos are from when it was listed as a rental, here. The listing is here.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM'S HOUSE, TURTLE BAY GARDENS, E. 49TH STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK