The Hip Priest, the Ex-Hedge Funder and the $10 Million Townhouse

Late one night in November, John Merz got some news about his childhood home that left him unsettled. A friend had texted a link to an article on a site devoted to New York real estate, reporting that the house, a midcentury building designed by Merz’s parents, the celebrated architects Mary and Joseph Merz, was about to undergo a potentially dubious alteration.