Co-op of the Day: 27 South Portland Avenue, #3
How much more is a parlor floor studio worth than a ground floor studio? That’s the question that leaped to mind when we contemplated this detail-rich listing at 27 South Portland Avenue, currrently listed for $325,000, on the heels of Monday’s co-op of the day at 32 South Oxford Street. In addition to the ceiling…
How much more is a parlor floor studio worth than a ground floor studio? That’s the question that leaped to mind when we contemplated this detail-rich listing at 27 South Portland Avenue, currrently listed for $325,000, on the heels of Monday’s co-op of the day at 32 South Oxford Street. In addition to the ceiling height and architectural details, today’s studio is also on the rear of the building overlooking the garden rather than the street. Is all of this worth the extra $100,000 or so?
27 South Portland Avenue, #3 [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
rob – floors like in the projects? i’ve been in A LOT of projects all over manhattan and i don’t recall ever seeing floors like that.
Ah — of course a parlor is the nicest part of a house. But to live in one room on the parlor floor is to live in a slum, an SRO. These houses literally were chopped up and turned into SROs back in the day when Fort Greene became a low-rent area. I don’t see any difference between that and this, except this is priced as if it’s luxury housing. Whereas there’s nothing ridiculous about buying and living in a whole house.
“This is not a reasonable place to live.”
For you, maybe not. For me, I’d love it. Know a lot of people who would love it, in fact (A friend who I sent this listing to this morning has already called the broker, she loves it so much. And it’s about 150K less than the couple places she looked at on the UWS which she said were smaller and total dumps).
And I was referring to the entire house, which would cost about 2.2 million (or so says ML4). If this were selling as a house, the parlor level is considered the best and most luxurious part, yet here you have called it a slum for some unknown reason.
also it has that horrible criss cross square wood flooring that most projects have in them.
*rob*
11217, what? Do you mean when it’s a floor through apt for sale? It wouldn’t be $2.2 million. And it would be more livable than this. This is not a reasonable place to live.
Okay, I’ve let all the wags have their say.
Meanwhile, across the street, JA sold his 3-family house for over $3m. I think it was late in 2007…so I guess that was the height…?
Anyway, I can relate to Ditmas b/c my husband is an artist and you really do need room and light. Basically, when you’re a visual artist, your studio needs to be a good workspace and if you have that workspace in your home, you need to make sure your cottage industry melds with your living space so that you’re not sleeping or eating where you use chemicals or need to spread out over work areas/tables.
So, yes, an artist working at home usually needs more space. The husband unit has a studio outside the house in New England (where he does most of his work) and one in Brooklyn. And, sad to say, we’re the denigrated Americans who live in too much space.
When we moved from Manhattan many years ago, it was from a “classic 10” or whatever they call it. My uncle managed to knock around in his Manhattan apartment that was nearly 5000 sq feet (yes) with more bathrooms than I can count for a long time before finally selling and moving (to Florida! Ugh! but that was years ago when people did that kind of thing). So I’m not totally out of touch with the burden of too much pointless space and really, really want to downsize. Not necessarily to a “Granny Crackden” (Rob, you sound like a true teenager with that one…and I resent the fact that “granny” had to be pulled into it!).
I was all for the studio on S. Oxford and this one on S. Portland isn’t bad at all. I would love to have a simple space in NYC that doesn’t require much commitment at all but know it’s there if we’re in the City. I keep thinking of moving entirely out-of-town but feel linked to Fort Greene. I think a small one-bedroom in Fort Greene would be our best bet. Just want to have ‘age-in-place’ living thinking toward the future (not so distant future).
Of course, it’s also way too small to raise a sophisticated child in. (Kidding!)
What everyone seems to be missing about this particular parlor-floor studio is that it really isn’t all that great: spare on the detail, crappy kitchen, no garden access. (And what about those shiny floors, Mr. B.? Yikes!) If it had a lot of original, unpainted wood, a nice kitchen and bath, and sole access to the garden, I could very well see paying $300k+ for it on that beautiful block.
Nerdy, so you’ve got it all figured out. Your place sounds fabulous, your life (lawyering excepted) even better, and you can look out your window and down your nose at the poor fool who’ll actually buy that little studio and call it a home.
But whoever does that will always be one level cooler than you, in my book. Just cause they put their money where their ass is. I’ll even help them decorate!