\”One exception is 46 East 66th Street, the longtime home to the Republic of Senegal’s ambassador and the site of the nation’s formal functions. The building, a circa 1890 landmark, has undergone a three-year restoration by HJ Development and will come to market later this year as a six-bedroom, seven-bath luxury townhouse priced at $28 million.
The developer, in an off-market deal, paid around $14 million in cash to acquire the 25-foot-wide property, which in 1919 gained a neo-Georgian brick facade by the society architect Mott B. Schmidt, and a smaller townhouse at 268 East 68th Street, which Senegal had used as offices. Both are being marketed as single-family homes, the first foray into that genre by the developer, whose previous focus was commercial-to-condo conversions, often in historic districts.
“To take a century-old building and totally reimagine and restore the interior and return it to the single-family residence it once was is a little like a surgeon going into someone’s body and performing major surgery,” said Ian Fishkin, the in-house counsel and acquisitions adviser at HJ Development. “We’re catering to the 1 percent at East 66th and Madison, but there is definitely something charming about owning your own home with your own front door and backyard at a significant address.”