Former Stony Point Home and Studio of World Renowned Artist Jasper Johns Hits the Market

Jasper Johns, the American artist and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama, a man often identified as one of the key progenitors of Pop and Minimal Art, with works in nearly every major American art museum, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the creator of the most expense painting ever sold by a living artist ($80 million) called Stony Point, NY his home and studio. 

This home and studio, a rustic barn board 1930’s farmhouse, nestled in a bucolic, wooded setting with a trout stream running through it served as Johns’ retreat and place of artistic inspiration and was the place where he created the majority of his works in the 1970s and 1980s.

The home is a very modest 2 bedroom, one bath two level home of unique character that hugs a hillside just off the main street of Stony Point.  It is easily missed and it seems that it has been suspended in time.  More tree house than farmhouse, its hand-hewn exposed timber beams and posts, rough tile floors and barn board walls, are touched by the creativity of a genius artist.  Unique to the home are four large glass garage doors on the first and second levels that were installed at the request of Mr. Johns.  Closed, these doors serve as massive windows onto the nature that surrounds the property.  However, when the two large doors in the upper level studio open, it creates an indoor/outdoor space with unmatched light and serenity. 

In addition to the two bedrooms, studio and the full bath on the upper level, there is a full kitchen, dining room and family room in the lower level.  The iconic garage doors are again present on the lower level, as well as another long wall of glass and aged barn board.  Handmade cream colored tile floors, allegedly made by a friend of Johns, cover the kitchen and dining room and warm all day in the glass-filled room, making it warm and inviting.  A fireplace completes the setting.

Outside there is a long deck and tiers of patios.  Still there today sits the long picnic table that Johns and his friends, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and John Cage spent many an evening relaxing and taking in the view of the 1.29 acre property.  Although Johns left the property years ago, one unique, clearly identifiable item of him remains.  It is seen and easily recognized in his works.  A stylized image of a simple bathtub faucet and handles appears again and again from the corners of Johns’ pieces.  Those bath fixtures were from Johns’ personal bathtub and they remain in the house today.   

In addition to the home, there is a two car garage with separate efficiency studio apartment.  Johns also worked and created here, leaving behind some clues to his work (old paint drops, bent coat hangers attached to the wall along with a small American flag, and copper etching basins tucked up in the rafters.)

The home and studio has just been placed on the market by its owner and is reasonably listed at $356,700 by Brian Levine of Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty.  It is available to view by appointment only.  For details contact: brian.levine@sothebysrealty.com or call 215-680-5803.