Inside a quirky-looking $10M NYC building built for ‘Gnomes’ that just listed for sale

For decades, drivers heading onto the Queensboro Bridge may have noticed a curious three-story building tucked just beneath the on-ramp — a narrow brick structure with proportions that never quite matched its Midtown East neighbors.

Now listed for $10 million, the mixed-use building at 316 E. 59th St. has worn many identities over the past century, but none as memorable as its first: a 1930 small bakery called Home of the Gnomes that attempted to lure customers with a storybook façade — most memorably a gnome figure perched above the roofline and another stationed outside, posed mid-bite with a papier-mâché loaf.

The bakery’s collapse during the economic turmoil of the early 1930s ended its short-lived whimsy, but the structure’s eccentric charm endured as it cycled through an exterminator, a kitchen showroom and a series of creative workspaces.

During the early 2000s, it brought renewed attention to its residential potential. 

Culminating in a 2015 moment of fame, the penthouse hit the rental market at $14,000 per month, drawing interest for its soaring 27-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls, Vermont Castings wood stove and an open great room that together resemble more of a rustic cabin than a New York City home. 

A Juliet balcony on the upper level practically grazes the Queensboro Bridge, offering an unexpected tableau of steel trusses and city traffic at eye level. A terrace outback overlooks a private 47-by-24-foot garden — an amenity that feels almost improbable in this part of Midtown.

Now offered at 6,500 square feet with five bedrooms and 3.5 baths, the property is being pitched as both a turnkey residence and a long-term play. 

The site’s mixed-use zoning (R8/C2-5) and roughly 9,500 square feet of unused air rights allow for significant reinterpretation, from a contemporary townhouse to a boutique commercial concept.

With just one residential and one commercial unit, the structure sits at the crossroads of possibility: it can be repositioned, expanded or preserved as-is for a buyer who values its offbeat history, according to the listing, from Ariel Ben Ezra of Wingate Advisors Inc. 

What hasn’t changed is the building’s improbable sense of playfulness.

Though the original gnome statues have long disappeared, the proportions of the great room, the vintage brickwork and the narrow frontage still hint at its theatrical beginnings.