For Leo and Amanda Sidran, there was a fair bit of kismet in their connection to the duplex rental they found in a beautiful old brownstone on Eighth Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
The couple, who met as members of a Madonna cover band, The Four Madonnas, in their mutual hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, discovered that the landlord’s grandfather, who’d owned the house previously, was a composer and composition professor.
“The landlord, the third generation to own the house, said to us proudly, ‘This is a musical house, there is music in those walls,’” Leo said.
That musical history, along with the apartment’s old-world charm and its grand high-ceilinged parlor, sold the two on the two-bedroom one-bath rental two-and-a-half years ago when they moved from a garden-level apartment on Sixth Street.
A year ago, timed in advance of the arrival of their now 3-month-old baby girl, Sol, the couple expanded beyond the first and second floors to the third floor as well. The top-floor two-bedroom, with its own separate entrance, now houses Unlimited Media Limited, the music production business Leo runs along with his father, jazz musician Ben Sidran. Amanda handles the logistics and digital end.
These days, there is music history not just in the walls, but on them.
In the apartment’s artwork are sure signs of Leo’s musical upbringing and his work as a writer and producer for TV and film scores as well as his tours around the world with his father as a jazz drummer in Ben & Leo Sidran & Friends.
“Every time we travel, we try to get art, and it used to be of just guitars,” Leo said, pointing out the dueling guitar posters that grace the wall behind the couch in the downstairs living room, one a print of a Juan Gris from the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.
There is a drawing in marker on the opposite wall done by a fan, Neil Bohrod, of Leo performing Al Otro Lado Del Rio, the song he co-produced and performed on for the Spanish film, "The Motorcycle Diaries," a song that won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Song. The bathroom off the kitchen touts promotional posters for The Four Madonnas, including a platinum-wigged Amanda.
“The first time my dad met Amanda, I was whipping her,” Leo recalls, laughing.
Amanda, a stylish and sophisticated new mother, smiled in mutual memory. “Yes, I was wearing a gold tooth and hot pant.”
The dominant music theme combines with a strong sense of personal and family history in the upstairs parlor, which probably best shows off the glamorous original details of the brownstone.
“We feel so incredibly lucky to have this grand old room,” Leo said looking around the airy space appreciatively. Although the family probably uses the downstairs living room off the kitchen more often, as it houses the TV and a comfy couch, the parlor—in between Sol’s sweet art-filled bedroom and Leo and Amanda’s own deco mod one—is perfect for entertaining .
Old wooden cubes built in the 70s to hold LPs (taken from Leo’s parents house in Madison) now house a variety of South African ethnic instruments scooped up on a tour Leo had there as well as various artifacts Leo’s aunt gave to his grandmother from Ethiopia when she lived there in the 60s. Nearby sits a large bamboo marimba from a tour through Vietnam.
“To get it through customs, we had to assure them it was an instrument, not a bazooka,” Leo said.
Not all of the couple’s collectibles are music related. Amanda’s mother’s suggestion that she collect cows is reflected in a variety of whimsical cow figurines and a cow print in the downstairs living room, and a large container of wine corks the two have been collecting since they’ve been together dominates a corner of the kitchen counter.
Leo shook his head. “Doesn’t make us look like very sober people, does it?”
Maybe not sober, but certainly sentimental. Almost every item, save some IKEA basics—“Our Swedish furniture,” Amanda called it, imbuing it with the worldliness of their other belongings—has a story behind it, many of them surrounding family members.
The large mirrored bubble structure that hangs behind the bed in the sunny master bedroom, which does double duty as Amanda’s office, reflects Leo’s grandfather’s move out to Beverly Hills in the 60s, and a beautiful rug in the hallway is one Leo says, “Mom brought back from Morocco.”
The artistic efforts of friends and family also figure prominently. The small yard features an old table Leo and Amanda tried in vain to get out but couldn’t through the narrow kitchen door, so they asked Argentinian artist and friend Pato Paez to paint it. His bold colorful design was inspired by the flowers in the little garden. Gorgeous weavings by Leo’s mother’s own hand grace the second-floor landing as well as the wall of the guest room on the third floor.
It seems, I point out, like almost nothing has been bought simply to fill space. Leo nods in a rhythmic way that suggests his deep musical underpinnings.
“Well,” he said. “You are essentially an accumulation of what you love, so if you have only what you love, maybe that says something.”
It seems, in the case of the Sidrans, to say a lot. The two feel like loving caretakers of the hundred-year-old home they live in, though they don’t own it, and the landlord pays them back in kindness.
“He brought us a baby gift when Sol was born,” Amanda said.
Leo acknowledged that, “Coming from Wisconsin, we didn’t want to be anonymous, we wanted to cultivate a relationship with the owner. After all,” he said, “It is his initials that are carved into the cement in the garden.”
Their history blends seamlessly, soundlessly with the house’s, which makes the Sidran’s rental feel like a wonderful home.
