Bob Dylan’s Old Harlem Home Asks $3M

A Renaissance Revival townhouse in Harlem once owned by Bob Dylan is on the market for $3 million.

The five-story, 4,500-square-foot home at 265 West 139th Street sits on Strivers’ Row, the landmarked stretch of late-1800s townhomes that once formed the heart of Harlem’s Black professional elite. Records show Dylan owned the property from 1986 until 2000, the Wall Street Journal reported, though little is publicly known about his time there.

Stan Ponte and Colin Montgomery of Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing, which comes out to about $667 per square foot.

Current owners Isam Salah, a retired attorney, and Elaina Richardson, a former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, bought the home in 2018 for $3.17 million. Though they say Dylan’s legacy wasn’t a factor in their purchase, the connection has drawn low-key attention from tour groups and curious passersby.

“Do you know Bob Dylan used to live in your house?” people sometimes ask, Salah said. “Yes, we know,” he said with a laugh.

The couple renovated the five-bedroom home after buying it, preserving original woodwork and tile while adding soundproof windows, modern bathrooms and an updated outdoor deck. Historic features include a wood-paneled vestibule, Palladian windows in the dining room and a four-foot-tall safe now used as a bar.

The listing comes as the Harlem townhouse market remains sluggish. Prices and sales have lagged since the pandemic, with buyers now largely preferring turnkey homes over fixer-uppers, according to Montgomery.

Richardson, who now runs an arts retreat in Saratoga Springs, said the couple is shifting their life upstate and wants to see the house lively again.

“We both began to feel sort of sorry for the house,” she said. “It should have a lot of life in it. I had this Mrs. Dalloway feeling of, ‘You should have a party.’”

Dylan, who famously moved to New York in the 1960s and drew inspiration from Harlem’s jazz and blues scene, released “Spanish Harlem Incident” in 1964. His former home is now one of the few in the area still holding on to its original character and, maybe, a verse or two of history.

— Judah Duke