Wall Street Journal
The actress, who stashes her award collection in the guest bathroom, bought the six-bedroom duplex in the early 90s.
Susan Sarandon keeps her awards, including her Oscar for “Dead Man Walking,” in a bright blue-painted bathroom in her longtime New York City home.
“I thought it was kind of funny to keep them in the bathroom,” said the actress, 73. “When people come out of the bathroom, I expect them to be laughing but they don’t say a thing. Maybe they think I’m taking it seriously.”
A native New Yorker, Ms. Sarandon has lived in the six-bedroom Chelsea duplex since 1991, when she bought it with former partner, the actor Tim Robbins. The loft has been her sanctuary, she said, and even has the family’s handprints embedded in a pillar by the entrance. But now she’s putting the home on the market for $7.9 million.
Susan Sarandon
PHOTO: RICH POLK/GETTY IMAGES
The actress, who took full ownership of the apartment in 2011 following her split with Mr. Robbins, said she’s “heartbroken” to sell the six-bedroom co-op, but her children have moved out and it is too large for her needs. She is downsizing to a smaller apartment nearby, she said, and while she has been spending time outside the city amid the coronavirus pandemic, she has no plans to leave the city permanently.
“I’ve always been a New Yorker and I’ll continue to be a New Yorker,” said Ms. Sarandon, who grew up in Queens.
The apartment spans roughly 6,000 square feet across two floors of a boutique nine-story co-op, a former industrial building dating back to the 1920s. Ms. Sarandon said she and Mr. Robbins bought it when she was pregnant with her second child, Miles, because their previous home nearby was too small for their growing family.
Ms. Sarandon and Mr. Robbins merged two units in the Chelsea building, connecting them via a staircase.
The finished product has a dining room, an office with custom wood built-ins, and a vast open living space that they called “the field,” which was reserved for her three children to play and perform. The apartment has two terraces, a small one off the master suite on the upper floor and a larger one on the floor below. The living spaces are framed with giant potted fiddle-leaf fig trees that Ms. Sarandon said she’s had “forever.”
The actress said she always enjoyed the flexibility of the space, which lent itself to constant change. A couple of years ago, it even became an office for the production of “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story,” a documentary Ms. Sarandon executive produced.
Ms. Sarandon has lived in the Chelsea duplex since 1991, when she bought it with her former partner, the actor Tim Robbins.
PHOTO: EITAN GAMLIELY/SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
The blue bathroom where Ms. Sarandon keeps her awards.
PHOTO: EITAN GAMLIELY/SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
The apartment has played host to many parties and a string of long-term visitors. Ms. Sarandon recalled frequently hosting Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic sister and death-penalty opponent Ms. Sarandon played in “Dead Man Walking.” Choreographer Bill T. Jones would visit with his dance company and twirl Ms. Sarandon’s children around the apartment. Ms. Sarandon said she has allowed artists and friends to stay as long as they wanted.
When her daughter Eva was a child, she hosted a “camping party,” using the apartment’s large central fireplace to cook hot dogs with her friends and sleeping in sleeping bags on “the field.” Geena Davis, Ms. Sarandon’s friend and “Thelma & Louise” co-star, showed up in a bear costume to scare the kids.
The size of the apartment allowed the kids to work on projects in their own space.
To create the apartment, Ms. Sarandon and Mr. Robbins merged two units in the Chelsea building.
PHOTO: EITAN GAMLIELY/SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
“They would build these intricate cities with all their X-Men or whatever, and I didn’t have to take them away when dinner time came,” Ms. Sarandon said.
As they grew up, the children had a sense of independence in the home thanks to the two separate floors and separate entrances, she said.
“Our place became the place to hang out,” she said. “I liked having the kids’ friends feel comfortable at our house.”
She said she would mostly miss the apartment’s views, which are nearly unobstructed to the north and south to the World Trade Center. “We saw the towers fall on 9/11 and we saw the sun rise again the next day,” she recalled.
The home has six bedrooms.
PHOTO: EITAN GAMLIELY/SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
Ms. Sarandon said she spent the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic quarantining in the loft, before heading to an upstate New York home her family owns to be with her kids.
“I felt bad deserting New York,” she said. “If it hadn’t been that I missed my kids, I would have stayed.”
As for whether the pandemic is likely to hurt her apartment’s chances of selling, the actress said she hopes it is unique enough to capture interest. On New Year’s Eve, she hosted “one last fling” for anyone who had ever visited or stayed in the home. She said they all begged her not to sell it.
Nikki Field and Mara Flash Blum of Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing.
“It’s the kind of home you’d expect a Grande Dame actress to live in,” said Ms. Field. “It’s dramatic. It’s like a studio set that happens to be her home.”