A picturesque Park Slope brownstone that fashion icon Jenna Lyons sold to Erasure and Depeche Mode’s Vince Clarke and his late wife, the music publicist and film producer Tracy Hurley Martin, has traded hands once again. The historic 1880s home, at 178 Garfield Place snagged $5.99 million, according to city property records.
Lyons, always a trendsetter, and her then-husband Vincent Mazeau, bought it for $1.3 million in 2004. The aptly stylish home was featured in Elle Decor. By the time Lyons’ nine-year marriage to Mazeau was ending — Lyons had fallen for jewelry exec Courtney Crangi — the home was listed for $3.75 million in 2011.
Clarke — the Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure co-founder — and Hurley Martin bought it for $4 million in 2012, the year Lyons and Mazeau divorced. Hurley Martin was also the co-founder and CEO of the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Gowanus, Brooklyn — and a publicist for Prince, George Michael, Depeche Mode, the Cure and others. She passed away in January after fighting cancer for two years.
This month, Clarke sold the townhouse to John Harkrider, a top anti-trust litigator. Harkrider did not return calls for comment at press time.
The five-bedroom, 3½-bath home is 4,424 square feet. It was on the market a mere 37 days, according to StreetEasy. At 20 feet wide, it features four floors with a built-out cellar and an irrigated garden with a mature dogwood tree.
The cellar was last used by Clarke as a soundproofed recording studio, but could also work as a media room, wine storage or a gym, the listing noted. The home also features original details like seven restored limestone mantels, and aged pine floors and shutters.
The latest listing photos prompted Lyons to post on social media that the decor was not Lyons-approved. “Not my decor but still has memories,” she mused. Gone is her canary yellow sofa, which had featured prominently in other shelter magazines such as Domino over the years. The look was widely copied, even by then-British prime minister David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, according to the New York Times .
But the home is still glam, albeit more understated, thanks to a renovation by Roman and Williams. Design details include an open double parlor with 10-plus-foot-high ceilings. There’s also an eat-in chef’s kitchen with a butler’s pantry and built-in bay window seating. A main bedroom suite takes up an entire floor with a separate sitting/dressing room that opens to a private terrace. The garden floor also works as a separate one-bedroom apartment.
Lyons, who made her name as executive creative director and president of J.Crew, transforming it from a catalog brand into a fashion obsession, quit in 2017 — after 27 years — to become an independent entrepreneur and co-founded LoveSeen, a false eyelash brand. She also became the first openly gay star of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New York City” and is involved in other projects like a brand agency spinout of investment firm Blackstone, according to recent reports .
The listing brokers, Jeremy V. Stein and Jennifer Henson of Sotheby’s International Realty, declined to comment. The buyer was repped by broker Ante Jakic, of Compass.
