The Irish comedian Graham Norton remembers sifting through Manhattan real estate listings a couple of decades ago and being struck by the photos of a charming carriage house nestled in a tiny gated mews in Murray Hill.
The home, at 6 Sniffen Court, which he later learned was being sold by the model Claudia Schiffer, reminded him of London, where he was living and working at the time. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Mr. Norton, who hosts “The Graham Norton Show” on the BBC, said in an email, “and finally caved in and flew over to see it.”
Upon his arrival, he was shown other properties around the city, he said, “but none of them captured my heart in the way Sniffen Court did. Once you step into Sniffen Court there is no sense that you are in the heart of Manhattan!”
Mr. Norton bought the mid-19th-century house in 2002 and used it as a pied-à-terre, except for a brief period, in 2004, when he was in New York hosting the “NY Graham Norton” talk show. He held onto the property and only recently completed a gut renovation, thinking that he might someday retire in New York. But plans changed, he said, after he married Jono McLeod, a Scottish filmmaker, in 2022.