Photographer: Andrea Ceraso

The news that Joel and Sherry Mallin just listed their 13.85-acre Pound Ridge estate made the front page of the New York Post. The Mallins are world-class collectors of contemporary art, and for the last 40 years their weekend home in Pound Ridge has been home to their astounding collection. They built a 9,100 square foot museum-quality ‘art barn’ on the property which houses about 30% of their total collection at any given time and, most vividly, approximately 75 large sculptures and works are displayed outdoors. At 88 years of age, the Mallins have determined to move on. The property is listed with Houlihan Lawrence’s Mary H. Palmerton and Jody Rosen for $6.495 million.

The Mallin’s story is quite interesting. They grew up in the same neighborhood in the Bronx and became friends while attending the Bronx High School of Science. Then, coincidentally, they both went to Cornell University. “We dated a little,” says Sherry, “but I announced we were too young to be serious and, as life evolved, Joel went on to Columbia Law School and we each married other people. We were each married to our first spouses for about 25 years and we each had three children. We did stay in touch and our families became friends. When Joel bought this property in Pound Ridge with his first wife, our family used to come for summer visits and to go swimming in the pool. And, as Joel had become a renowned attorney, my first husband and I used to turn to him for legal advice and for referral to other lawyers when the need arose. Fast-forward a quarter-century to 1979, and I’d determined to get a divorce from my first husband. 

I made an appointment to consult with Joel about finding a divorce attorney and walked into his office and said ‘you’re probably not going to believe this, but I want a divorce’.” Joel picks up the story saying, “I couldn’t believe it because I thought they were a great and happy couple. But then I stunned Sherry…telling her the news that my wife and I had separated one week earlier! It was fate. In Yiddish it’s called ‘beshert’. We started dating, and we were married in 1986.”

The couple has funded their prolonged and prodigious shopping spree with profits from a myriad of companies you’ve never heard of, that they’ve owned and operated. Earlier in his career, Joel served as Staff Assistant to the Chief Counsel at the Internal Revenue Service, and then became a leading tax lawyer in private practice in New York, with a focus in mergers & acquisitions. Joel and Sherry have made a steady diet of buying and operating companies that didn’t fit the mold of some big mergers, including such disparate things as a toilet seat manufacturer, a mechanical engraving company, cattle ranching in South Dakota, and, for thirty years, a fishing company.

Moving on from their Pound Ridge retreat – and the process of selling, donating and gifting the vast majority of their astounding collection – will be bittersweet. As Sherry explains, “We don’t really feel like we ‘own’ the art. It’s more like we’ve been stewards for creations that should be enjoyed indefinitely. And in most cases, our personal involvement has been more about our relationship with the artist than our taking ownership of the artwork. Over the years we’ve fostered countless young artists and had numerous artist-friends live in- residence on our Pound Ridge property – asking only that each artist-in-residence ‘leave something’ in return for their stay. Some have left poems and letters, others art. The whole process has been more evolutional than transactional…and we want to guide the path for these great works before we’re too old to do so.” One example is the large silver 1950s camper that presently sits in a custom-built shed on the Mallin’s property, that is decorated inside entirely with beads and made to look like a period cocktail lounge – by the artist Liza Lou. This unique work is slated to become a new permanent feature at a yet undisclosed museum.

“It’s really the property I almost can’t bear to leave,” Sherry says. “Everyone who visits us remarks on the calm and serenity. Boating on the lake, picking apples in the orchard, walking in the woods, or just sitting on one of the patios and taking in the view, I’ve always been energized by the connection to nature. It’s our own park, and it’s been the gathering spot where our six kids and their spouses have grown together as adults, and summer camp for our 9 grandchildren.”

The main home on the property is a 1930’s, 5,000 square foot, 4 bedroom / 5 bath, Currier & Ives classic, which has a porte cochere – with a custom-designed installation by Leo Villareal lighting the breezeway connecting the main house with the lake house, with its own glass-walled studio apartment perched lakeside. The ‘art barn’, opened in 2000, incorporates enormous space on two levels, including a wine cellar downstairs, and could be repurposed for a multitude of uses. The formal pool house includes a fireplace and large living area with glass walls and sliders leading to the in-ground pool and patio. In addition, the compound includes a caretaker’s house and two guest cottages.

One work of art which will not be leaving the property – and which is somewhat allegorical for Joel and Sherry’s feelings about the property – is Andy Goldsworthy’s installation, simply called ‘Wall’. “After seeing some of Andy’s early work, we invited him to come stay with us in Pound Ridge in 1999. Despite his growing reputation, he was just a kid in his twenties and showed up here in a pair of ripped jeans. He started by refortifying an ancient stone wall back in the woods… then he dragged a huge dead tree from the forest floor and laid it horizontally on top of the old wall … and then he collected an enormous number of stones from around the wood and constructed another layer of wall on top of the logs. It was meant to symbolize renewal, and hope for the future. … Over the years the upper layer of stones has largely fallen and the huge log has mostly deteriorated… and that’s part of the life cycle of the art. We tell the children who come to see our property and collection on school trips each year, that it is the obligation to take the best of my generation and place the best of their generations on top of it, and to build on it… and that’s like the life cycle of the art as well…Whoever buys the property will have a hand in seeing to the Wall’s future.”