Palisades, N.Y. | $ 2.999 million
A complex from the 19th and 20th centuries comprising several buildings with a total of six bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms and several art studios on 4.33 hectares
Grace Knowlton, a sculptor famous for her minimalist spheres of various sizes and materials, lived on this property, which came from an estate in Snedens Landing, an enclave on the Hudson River 12 miles north of the George Washington Bridge. Ms. Knowlton, who died in December at the age of 88, occupied the converted barn and rented the other outbuildings to fellow artists who used the studios and ovens. Her own work adorned the main house and grounds; There remain several balls that can be bought.
Snedens Landing, a small, historic neighborhood in the hamlet of Palisades in Rockland County, has long drawn creative people. For the past century it has been a summer colony for writers, actors, and musicians, including John Dos Passos, Aaron Copland, and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. More recently, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray and Uma Thurman have been among the disproportionately famous people with houses. The area is entirely residential but convenient to business in Piermont, New York (about four miles north), Orangeburg, New York (about five miles northwest), and Closter, New York (about five miles southwest).
Size: 5,191 square feet (combined living space)
Price per square foot: $ 578
Inside: In 1968, architect Hugh Hardy renovated the wooden-sided barn building as Mrs. Knowlton's residential area. The structure has a large open space on the main level. The interior walls and ceiling are made of white-painted clapboard or stained wood or molded panels, and the floor is made of wood planks or ceramic tiles.
Cabinets with countertops made of butcher's blocks define the perimeter of the central kitchen with a vaulted ceiling. A wood stove on one side anchors an informal dining and seating area. On the other side, the area flows into a living room with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase and a second wood-burning stove.
Also on the main level is a dining room that Ms. Knowlton used as a studio. Light streams through a double-leaf glass wall and a number of other windows, including a pair of octagonal portholes. The master bedroom is on this level, along with an en suite bathroom with brightly colored square brown tiles on the tub wall.
A second bedroom with a skylight is halfway up the stairs on its own level. Portions of the upper level are above the ground floor, including a bedroom overlooking the living room, open beams and a skylight
