Egy “állati ház” eladó Manhattanben

‘Animal House’ for Sale in Manhattan

No, it’s definitely not the crazy cat-lady trying to sell her flat. This apartment, overlooking Central Park, is weirder by far and costs $3.4 million. But while the cat-lady would never leave her pets behind, this home comes with animals included, though.

The Beresford is one of New York’s most prestigious areas, which would explain the price of the two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in a historic district. The building, designed by Emery Roth (Róth Imre), the city’s greatest architect of pre-war apartment buildings, was also home to singer Diana Ross and tennis player John McEnroe, among other celebrities. The owner, Gregory Speck, a New York socialite, celebrity journalist and author, decided to sell up after 36 years and he would like to find a buyer who would be happy to take in his animals.

Mr Speck, a lifelong animal lover who dreamed of owning a zoo, considers his taxidermy collection “an educational zoological display.” The 400 taxidermed beasts proudly displayed along the walls and every corner are not the usual décor you expect to find in a city apartment. They would not only be the pride of a Montana hunter but would also fill a hall at the neighbouring American Museum of Natural History. Hanging from every corner and standing in every available space in Speck’s apartment are stuffed turkeys, elk heads mounted on the walls, cougars and standing black and grizzly bears looking fearsome.

Mr Speck is very keen to point out that he is not a hunter and has never been. He spent roughly $50,000 on his hobby over the course of three years in the 1990s, when taxidermy was considered out of fashion. ‘In the ’90s, it was politically incorrect to have taxidermy specimens for various reasons. I found I was able to acquire many museum-quality trophies for very little because people didn’t want them.’

The animals come from museum liquidations, taxidermist castoffs and hunters whose wives wouldn’t allow them to hang their trophies in the house. He even had road kill stuffed and managed to find some pieces in a country-western disco, but the most bizarre story definitely comes with a bison head in one of the bedrooms. He rescued ‘Buffalo Bill’ from a supermarket freezer in Virginia. Gregory Speck’s collection is quite possibly one of the largest in the world and is valued at a shocking $1 million.

In fact the apartment is so dominated by the stuffed animals – Kodiak bears, two moose mounts, a black bear, freshwater game fish, bobcats, lynxes, raccoons, a swan, rattlesnakes and even 40 Asiatic male pheasants in ‘full plumage‘ – that the estate agent decided to present the apartment with two sets of photos: one shows the apartment as it currently is with the taxidermy and the other set had the animals edited out of the pictures so that prospective buyers could get a sense of the grandeur of the apartment.

Speck is hoping he won’t have to auction his collection off, as it would mean dispersing them. ‘I would rather find somebody that would be so amazed that I’ve done this collection who would want them kept together as a big family,’ he said. “I guess some people see murder on the walls, but I committed no murders. You know, I gave them the best home that I could.” He would rather that one person or institution took them on and jokingly described them as ‘very well-behaved.’