Condo of the Day: 44 Cheever Place, #502

This is interesting, my wife and I lived in this apartment for the last 7 years. Every year we would try to convince the condo owner to sell our unit to us and she refused (we even had first right of refusal – for whatever that was worth [Nothing]). I will say that it is a large one bedroom, having the powder room was great. We miss all of our neighbors in the building but we certainly don’t miss the low rumble of the BQE outside. Someone made the brilliant decision to install single pane windows along the West elevation. Of course most owners on that side install the City Windows (which look terrible). The view of lower Manhattan and harbor is now partially obstructed by crapitecture on Tiffany Place – but it’s still the best view in the entire building (except for the roof – which again, is uninhabitable due to the BQE noise).

The finishes haven’t been touched since the initial flip to condo in ‘84 or ‘86. The maple floors are original to the school. As far as construction goes – it needs a gut. I convinced the owner to upgrade the appliances (she took all my recommendations and ‘value engineered’ them – which was probably the smart thing to do since I couldn’t convince her to renovate the entire kitchen). All the doors are metal bucks with pre-hung hollow core doors (again – easier to rip out for a buyer). Notice that they don’t show any picture of the baths – they are foul (think 1” wide caulk joints). Another positive is that the PTAC units are new (but still noisy – on the upside they help drown out the BQE noise).

If anyone goes to an open house they will pass out a mezzanine ‘construction’ design, but it doesn’t sound like DOB is approving any more mezzanines in the building. Being architects my wife and I fanaticized about using the space above the kitchen to recess in bookshelves, niches for objects, and a guest sleeping loft. (the main ceilings are 12’ 6” and over the kitchen and baths they drop to 8’). We wanted to tear down the wall between the living and bedroom and separate them with a piece of low millwork that would allow light to pass above and function for both rooms.

The hallways were nice – one of the advantages of an old building infrastructure, they are 14’ wide with terrazzo floors. The ‘new’ common spaces are really dated. The common Laundry Room is a dungeon. The elevator is a bit temperamental and the 5-storey walk up can be painful when it breaks down which happened about every other month (one time for a whole month!).

I went snooping through my pictures to see if I can find some with a better sense of scale, unfortunately I took these to sell furniture before we moved, but they will give you a slightly better sense of the space when it’s not empty.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/70633612@N00/

mtb253 - Believe me, if I had the money to do it properly I would live in the building. But I do think that it will take a significant amount to do it correctly.

The board is seemed a little apathetic from my perspective (as a lowly renter), on the other hand there are enough type-A professionals in that building to make it truly great community. I heard that the buildings finances are not so great, but these could all be barging points for a better price. I do know that a lot of the finances were going to remedy major problems so smaller aesthetic issue have been sacrificed. The building was re-pointed over the last two years, the parapet was rebuilt, new EPDM roofing

The elevator was better recently, most of the major problems were during a rebuild that happened about 4 or 5 years ago.

You won't find 'bones' like this building, which is why it's so especially appealing in this neighborhood.