The New York City Studio Where Artist Mark Rothko Worked Is for Sale

The private unit takes up the second and third floor of the carriage house, which was originally an equestrian training space. The apartment is listed at $9.5 million

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

August 18, 2025

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Mark Rothko’s former apartment in Manhattan is on sale for $9.5 million. The 20th-century abstract artist once used the renovated Gilded Age carriage house as a studio, where he created the iconic paintings that would grace the Rothko Chapel in Houston.

According to a listing from Sotheby’s Realty, the Lenox Hill unit is part of a building constructed in 1884 by architect William Schickel. Originally a private equestrian training space, the building later included sound studios, where Elvis Presley re-recorded scenes from the film Love Me Tender in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Rothko acquired the expansive building to use as a unique workspace.

“This carriage house on East 69th Street is a rare offering with significant cultural and architectural history,” Jennifer Henson of Sotheby’s tells Galerie magazine’s Mary Elizabeth Andriotis. “This historic residence offers a unique chance to own a piece of New York’s rich creative legacy.”

Born in Russia in 1903, Rothko immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 10. After attending Yale University and moving to New York City, the artist worked as a teacher. He rose to prominence in the 1930s and 1940s; by the mid-1940s, he started creating the large color-field paintings that would define his legacy.

Later in his career, Rothko received several place-based commissions. He painted a series for the Four Seasons restaurant in 1958 and murals for Harvard University in 1961. In 1964, he began working on a project for Dominique and John de Menil, French art patrons living in Houston. The de Menils wanted to build a chapel, and they hoped Rothko would influence its design and furnish it with original artworks.

Rothko was excited by the opportunity. As his son, Christopher Rothko, told PaperCity magazine’s Catherine D. Anspon in 2015, “The chapel finally gave my father the space to create a holistic experience from his art, and as an installation, it gives his work the time to speak deeply with the viewer.”

Needing a place in New York to carry out his vision, Rothko picked the Lenox Hill carriage house. The space is now split into two units: A nonprofit occupies the first floor, while the second and third floors hold a five-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment. When Rothko worked there, he noticed the studio’s skylight, which inspired him to include one in the chapel’s design. The artist built mock chapel walls inside his studio and “used a pulley system to work on the large-scale canvases in that space,” Will Davison, a spokesperson for the Rothko Chapel, tells Hyperallergic’s Maya Pontone.

As Christopher told PaperCity magazine, “The studio was chosen to model the chapel, which in turn was modeled on the studio.”

For more than two years, Rothko worked on 14 panels—seven paintings with black rectangles against maroon backgrounds and seven purple canvases—that would hang in the chapel. “The magnitude, on every level of experience and meaning, of the task in which you have involved me, exceeds all of my preconceptions,” the artist wrote in a 1966 letter to the de Menils. “And it is teaching me to extend myself beyond what I thought was possible for me.”

Rothko finished the chapel paintings in 1967, but he didn’t live to see them installed. The artist died by suicide in 1970. The Rothko Chapel opened in 1971 as a non-denominational spiritual space, and today it’s a “place for solitude and gathering” with a focus on social justice.

The carriage house has been listed two other times since 2023, reports Hyperallergic. Its first floor is currently occupied by the Urasenke Chanoyu Center, a nonprofit focused on traditional Japanese tea. Only the private apartment is for sale. But as Elle Decor’s Geoffrey Montes reports, the apartment’s new owner would have an opportunity to buy out the Urasenke Chanoyu Center in 12 years to gain full ownership of the building.

“The property will be worth a lot more at that time,” Sotheby’s broker Jeremy Stein tells the New York Post’s Jennifer Gould.

Sonja Anderson | Read More

Sonja Anderson is a daily correspondent for Smithsonian magazine who covers art, archaeology and culture, from newly discovered artifacts to the latest art heists.