Prolific poet and activist Maya Angelou's Harlem townhouse is currently in the market which is sold for over $5 million.
The four-story brownstone home is located at 58 West 120th Street with five bedrooms and five full bathrooms in the 5,500 square feet property.
Angelou, who passed away at the age of 86 in May 2014, purchased the building in a dilapidated condition back in the early 2000s. It was full of vandals; it had missing stairs and rotting floor beams when Angelou purchased it.
She hired architect Marc Anderson to renovation the place which resulted into a stunning space while retaining some of the home's original features, 6 sq.ft. reported.
The original Harlem townhouse is built in the early 1900s and the home's oak front doors, staircase banisters, parlor-level wainscoting, and decorative fireplaces were restored.
The house which is located within the Mount Morris Park Historic District now features a painted drop ceiling in the dining room, 12-foot ceilings, and a back garden with many beautiful features.
The renovated house also added contemporary elements that included an elevator, two skylights, recessed lighting, and central air-conditioning. The basement was also updated transforming it into a recreation/entertainment area.
Angelou, with net worth of $10 million, mostly lived in her home located in Winston-Salem, N.C. since she worked as a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University. The poet's first city home as an apartment in Brooklyn and she also lived on Central Park West and Riverside Drive, New York Times reported.
But she would visit her townhouse a few times in a year. Since her health condition deteriorated in 2013, she wasn't able to return to the house anymore. Because of that, the house became a rental residence until last year with a rental rate of under $12,000 per month.
The sale of the house is under the listing of Link NY Realty, lead by Valon Nikci but the listing isn't online yet.
