Model Paulina Porizkova and husband Ric Ocasek attend the premiere of “Florence Foster Jenkins” at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016, in New York.Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Supermodel and actress Paulina Porizkova and Ric Ocasek, frontman of new wave band The Cars, have put their historic Gramercy townhouse on the market.
The Czech-born Porizkova, who graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in both 1984 and 1985 and has been a judge on America’s Next Top Model, and Ocasek, who was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with The Cars last year, are asking $15.25 million for the 23.5-foot wide brownstone.
Porizkova announced on Instagram last year that the couple had separated after 28 years of marriage.
Their five-bedroom, 4 1/2-bathroom home was built in the 1850s and remodeled in 1919 by architects Sterner and Wolfe. It features a living room with 20-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook a private garden with a southern exposure.
Highlights of the 5,760-square-foot home also include a skylit alcove and a recording studio in the finished basement.
Debbie Korb of Sotheby’s has the listing.
Porizkova, who fled with her family to Sweden in the midst of the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, holds Swedish and U.S. citizenship. She has acted in several films, most notably co-starring with Tom Selleck in 1989’s “Her Alibi.” In 2017, she wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “America Made Me a Feminist,” writing, “the American woman is told she can do anything and then is knocked down the moment she proves it.”
Ocasek began performing with The Cars in the late 1970s until the band broke up in 1988. He played guitar and sang lead vocals on most of their songs, including “You Might Think,” which won the first MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1984.
As journalist in the New York, I’ve written about everything from the post-recession housing market in Fairfield County, Conn., to the third-home market in the Hamptons.