Famed UES Mansion Letting Vines Damage Next-Door Townhouse, Suit Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The vines growing around the Upper East Side's famed Pulitzer Mansion may be a pretty sight for passersby, but they are actually a menace responsible for thousands of dollars in property damage, according to the owner of a next-door townhouse.

Those vines are at the center of a new lawsuit filed by the owners of 5 East 73rd St. against the owners of the mansion, a Gilded Age landmark at 11 East 73rd St. a few steps east of Central Park.

Built in 1903 by newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, the enormous 79-foot-wide mansion resembles a Venetian palazzo, with a limestone facade and Beaux Arts accents. Since the 1950s, it has been home to more than a dozen co-op apartments.

Among its amenities is a common courtyard on the mansion's west side, abutting a wall that is shared by the mansion and the next-door townhouse. That wall is covered with "vines, ivy and other types of plants," which, since 2002, the mansion owners have agreed to prevent from "encroaching" onto the townhouse property, the suit says.

When the pesky vines made their way onto the townhouse's facade and roof in 2009, they displaced bricks and grout, causing water leaks at the home, which is also a city landmark, according to the suit.

The mansion owners paid to cut back the vegetation at the time. Now, however, the vines have returned to the townhouse's facade and roof, leading to more leaks and cracked and falling bricks — but the mansion owners have failed to act, the suit alleges.

The suit names the mansion's owner as Wallack Management, a company specializing in high-end luxury properties. The townhouse owner who brought the suit, meanwhile, is identified as Filicia Anstalt Vaduz.

An executive at Wallack declined to comment when reached by email on Thursday, saying he had not read the suit.

The suit seeks a court order preventing "the plantation of further vines, ivy and other plants" on the wall — plus a combined $400,000 in damages for the costs of repairing the wall, trespassing, and other claims.

The Pulitzer Mansion has one apartment now up for sale: a unit formerly owned by a co-founder of the Paris Review, which was listed last month for $7.5 million.

The mansion's only full-floor residence was sold earlier this year, with city records showing a price of $16.6 million.