A recent sale listing of late Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim's NYC home gives theatre fans an unprecedented look at the Into the Woods and Sweeney Todd composer's home quarters. And if you happen to have $7 million lying around, you could even live in the very home where many of the man's most beloved musicals were written. Take a look at the listing and its photos here.
A caveat: we can't know how much of the decoration in the photos was how Sondheim had it and how much is staging for the listing, but with LPs of his musicals' cast albums on display along with accoutrement of countless vintage games (of which Sondheim was reportedly a big fan and devoted collector), it appears that much pictured was as the Broadway great left it when he passed in 2021. A video tour of the home can be viewed below.
Sondheim acquired the Turtle Bay property fairly early in his career, famously calling it "the house that Gypsy built." Though not his only property, his NYC home would be where he wrote much of the musicals that established Sondheim as a composer-lyricist powerhouse. After penning lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy, Sondheim would write a string of scores as a composer and lyricist that are largely credited with reinventing the art form of musical theatre, including Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George, Into the Woods, Passion, and Assassins. Over his career, he won seven Tony Awards and received an eighth for lifetime achievement; eight Grammys; an Academy Award; and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
His work is currently represented on Broadway with the Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford-led revival of Sweeney Todd at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. A revival of his Merrily We Roll Along will begin performances this fall, and his final musical, Here We Are, will receive a posthumous world premiere at Off-Broadway's The Shed beginning in September.
