unreal estate
by
MICHAEL GROSS
The March of Time John Philip Sousa’s former home in the West Village is ready for an encore
T
he death of Greenwich Village, the neighborhood bounded by the Hudson River, Houston Street, Broadway and 14th Street, with Washington Square Park at its heart, has been regularly announced since it was first settled in the 1830s—and the empty storefronts of once vital West 8th Street do make you wonder. I’ve been guilty of this crime, having fled from the influx of trust fund brats, debt lawyers and finance-holes. But a townhouse at 80 Washington Place, which has just come on the market for a staggering (at least by Village standards) $28.5 million, stands as proof that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of the Village may have been greatly exaggerated. After a gut renovation of everything but its red brick façade topped with a mullioned studio window, the house is a shining example of how a neighborhood is reinvented. That façade bears a plaque noting the home’s most famous owner, the patriotic
40 | AVENUE MAGAZINE • MAY 2012
Above left: John Philip Sousa bought 80 Washington Place in 1919 Above right: The Sousa house is now on the market for $28.5 million
march composer and bandleader John Philip Sousa, who bought it in 1919. It also name-checks William W. Berwick, who built it after rising from mason to builder, with a clientele that included the Schermerhorn family, namesakes of the landmark Schermerhorn Row at the South Street Seaport. Berwick lived one door to the east of No. 80 in the second of a pair of Greek Revival row houses (he sold the other to an “importer of fancy goods”), then built and moved into
a third house, which replaced an adjacent stable, before his death in 1856. Sousa had studied music and joined the U.S. Marine Band, in which his father played trombone, at age 14 in 1868, eventually becoming its director. During World War I he was commissioned a Lieutenant Commander and led the Naval Reserve Band. By the time he moved to the central Village, it was no longer the privileged enclave of Vanderbilts and Astors that it was in the mid-19th