Lofts

November 26, 2015

Architect-Owner of This Polished-yet-Casual Village Loft Asks $3M

Century-old bones and clean white walls frame the well-proportioned interior spaces of this warm, sophisticated two-bedroom loft in Greenwich Village, the result of a recent gut renovation by the architect-owner. John Berg of BergDesign Architecture, with his wife Jennifer Desmond, purchased the sunny downtown co-op at 250 Mercer Street for $1.5 million in May of 2013, two years and an impressive renovation ago. The bright high-floor unit is now on the market for $2.9 million. We’ve featured some of the architect’s projects, and this apartment's renovation is detailed on the BergDesign site, with the imperative of keeping "three priorities: durability, casual living and contrasting rich materials" for a family with small children in mind.
Have a look at how a gut renovation transformed the space

Distinctive Homes

November 24, 2015

$4.25M Greenpoint Waterfront Penthouse Adds Up to 3,168 Square Feet of Historic Loft Perfection

By Michelle Cohen

If you want real loft living without many of the sacrifices (except the $4.25 million ask, of course) that often come with it, this stunning full-floor Greenpoint "historic penthouse" atop 190 West Street is your unicorn. Modern, stylish and well-crafted finishes, comforts like central air and radiant floor heat, windows and views that never quit, and a prime location add up to a dream loft. Wait, did we mention the 3,600 square feet of private outdoor space?
Check out pre-war historic loft perfection, this way

Distinctive Homes

November 9, 2015

Furnished Nolita Loft in Moby’s Former Building Will Cost You $12,500 a Month

By Emily Nonko

262 Mott Street is a Nolita condo building that was formerly an 1850s armory. More recently, the building has gained notoriety for its creative loft spaces, with an apartment featuring moveable bookshelf walls and another with translucent partitions. Moby once owned one such space in the building, which he bought in 1996 for $215,750 and then sold for around $2 million last year. This apartment, a two bedroom, feels much more like a loft than Moby's modern pad, with wood beams galore and a nice open "great room." It's being offered as a six-month furnished rental for the not-so-low rent of $12,500 a month. Nobody said living in such a famously creative building–with some awesome furniture to boot–would come cheap.
Take a look

Distinctive Homes

November 5, 2015

Rent This Bright and Lovely Duplex Loft in an Historic East Village Artists’ Haven

By Michelle Cohen

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November 4, 2015

‘Veronica Mars’ Actor Lists Village Loft Featuring Cast Iron Columns and Double Height Ceilings

By Emily Nonko

Cast iron is prevalent throughout 67 East 11th Street, a Greenwich Village building built in 1868 and converted to a co-op in 1973. Back in the late 19th century, it was home to the James McCreery Dry Goods Store; the facade has beautiful cast iron details like Corinthian columns as well as big arched windows, and this apartment owned by actor Chris Lowell of "Veronica Mars" fame is now on the market for $1.195 million. The unit is a two bedroom, with the master bedroom located in a sleeping loft above the living room. The lofted space allows for 16-foot ceilings and incredible oversized windows.
Take a tour

October 30, 2015

Insane Skylights at this $18 Million Tribeca Penthouse Loft

By Emily Nonko

140 Franklin Street in Tribeca is a prewar building designed by Albert Wagner (also the architect of the Puck Building in Soho) in 1887. It's considered one of the city's best Romanesque Revival buildings, with its grand arched windows and detailed facade. Although it was built for the Walton Company, a manufacturer of wrapping papers, it has since been converted into 12 luxe condo apartments. This one, a penthouse unit, occupies the entire top two floors of the building and spans over 4,000 square feet. The skylights in here are just as grand as the building facade, creating a truly awe-worthy living area. And don't even get us started on the 1,640-square-foot roof top patio...
Check it out

Distinctive Homes

October 28, 2015

Wood Is Everywhere at This Tribeca Loft Apartment Asking $5.5 Million

By Emily Nonko

Tribeca is the land of lofts, but we've never seen one quite like this before. You'll find wood paneling, wood ceiling beams, just wood everywhere—even in the backyard—at this floor-through apartment, located in the 1915-era brick building 321 Greenwich Street (h/t Curbed). The building only has four units total, this one is located on the second floor.) It's a ton of open space, 3,000 square feet to be exact, and it's all quite unique. The living room, pictured above with its wood floors, wood ceiling, wooden beams and wood tables, only gives you a taste.
See more of it

Distinctive Homes

October 27, 2015

This $8M Tribeca Loft Is a Real Eye-Opener

By Michelle Cohen

Though you might wish you left them closed. As the listing says, this full-floor condominium at 408 Greenwich Street is indeed a quintessential Tribeca loft–over 3,500 square feet of space, two bedrooms, a private key-locked elevator, ten-foot floor-to-ceiling arched windows looking out over beautiful Greenwich and Hubert Streets...they're all there. "The moment that you step inside you are surrounded by pure opulence." That's the part that makes this home a little more unique. Is it $8 million unique (it's also available as a rental for $26.5K/month)? You decide. "Hit one button for your programmable lighting system and let the experience begin."
Hit it, Maestro

October 20, 2015

Quirky East Williamsburg Artist’s Loft Offers a Bygone Authenticity for $3M

By Michelle Cohen

This converted East Williamsburg warehouse at 139 Powers Street is of the sort you don't come by too often anymore. It's one of those really cool-looking spaces you'd walk by maybe ten or twenty years ago and think, "hey, I'd like to live in this neighborhood" and wonder who lived there and what it looked like inside. As the listing says, it offers "authenticity that is difficult to find." The immediate neighborhood is that rare "unspoiled" old-school slice of what was once the 'burg's Italian enclave, and still has the vibe of being a mix of old, new, neighborhood-y and Vice-era cool. The two-story property, currently used as a single-family home, spans 3,600 interior square feet in a 25 x 100-foot building and is listed at $2.95 million; the loft currently belongs to local artist Joanne Ungar, and it definitely reflects the owner's creative tendencies–and green thumb.
Take a look around

October 18, 2015

$7,500/Month Greenwich Village Loft Looks Good Even With All Its Carpet

By Emily Nonko

In the world of New York real estate, there's generally a rule: wood floors are good, and carpeting... not so much. It gets dirty, doesn't look as authentic, and there are usually gorgeous wood floors hiding underneath. This is especially true for loft apartments, which are typically dominated by wood flooring throughout. But not this one, at 12 East 14th Street in Greenwich Village. And you know what? We don't hate it. Maybe it's the handsome blue color and the way it blends into the furniture. Or the idea of having a nice cushion underneath our feet. (Plus, this loft hasn't totally abandoned its wood floor roots... you'll find some in the kitchen and the hallways.) The co-op apartment is now on the rental market for $7,250 a month. It comes fully furnished, so the renter is going to have to embrace that carpet living.
See more

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Williamsburg’s New Soda Factory Lofts Bottle Industrial Architecture but Add Modern Style

By Dana Schulz

Leasing has launched at the former Williamsburg manufacturing plant of the Brooklyn Bottling Company and Dr. Brown's Soda. The new development at 60 Berry Street is aptly called the Soda Factory Lofts, and the 40 units are an attractive mix of industrial architecture and modern style. There are currently 12 apartments on the market, ranging from a $3,300/month one-bedroom to a $5,500/month two bedroom.
Check them out

October 15, 2015

Studio Cadena Turns a Cramped 600 Square Foot Bushwick Loft Into a Three-Bedroom Artist Residence

By Rebecca Paul

Bushwick is a rapidly changing artists' neighborhood and much like other popular neighborhoods in New York City, is experiencing an increasing scarcity of affordable living space. That being said, it's easy to understand why this group of just-starting-out youngsters decided to transform a 600-square-foot, awkwardly subdivided loft into a bright open space they could share comfortably. With a limited budget and help from the architects and designers at Studio Cadena, their apartment is now a modern and dynamic living space.
Check it out here

October 14, 2015

Spiffed-Up Williamsburg Loft Has Killer Views and Brilliant Built-Ins for $6,500 a Month

By Michelle Cohen

Williamsburg was once a neighborhood known for its big, open loft spaces. While those lofts may have gone condo and acquired dog-washing stations and compost centers, they’re still very much in existence. Case in point: this cavernous loft in the totally 21st century Esquire Lofts at 330 Wythe Avenue, just a hair south of the 'burg's decidedly factory-to-fancy Northside, on the rental market for $6,500 a month. This impressive space in a former shoe polish factory–built in 1914 and converted to condos in 2000–is listed as a one-bedroom, but it’s a duplex (in the loft sense of the word), and though there’s no floor plan, it claims a sizable 1,600 square feet. One of the best things about lofts–even well-groomed ones–is that no two are alike; former residents have carved out unique living and sometimes working spaces, and this is no exception. The standout feature here would have to be that custom-milled raised wooden storage platform.
See what else is cool in this loft

Distinctive Homes

October 7, 2015

This $635K Washington Heights Co-op Is a Ground Floor Opportunity With Lofty Ambitions

By Michelle Cohen

At first glance, the price of this 1,245-square-foot well-configured and loft-like co-op in Washington Heights looks like a pretty good deal. The same spot in the parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn where one usually finds sprawling industrial-chic lofts would undoubtedly be several times more than the $635,000 ask. Upon further inspection, it becomes evident that this apartment at 447 Fort Washington Avenue occupies the building's basement. We're assuming it's been excavated enough to be legal, but even the listing prepares us for the fact that "...this lower first floor garden apartment is sublimely peaceful with no neighbors above, below or beside." It's certainly a nice-looking lower first floor garden apartment, though. In addition to the no-neighbors-because-it's-the-basement thing, keep in mind that the neighborhood is known as a no-longer-secret spot to find relatively reasonable real estate in NYC; the Times called it "affordable Manhattan," pointing out that the median price for apartments in Washington Heights was less than $500,000 in Q1 of 2015. On the other hand, a similarly-outfitted, though much larger, Cobble Hill duplex condo loft consisting of a ground floor and basement is listed for $2.85 million. So perhaps this lofty lower lair in upper Manhattan deserves further investigation after all.
Take a look around

Distinctive Homes

October 6, 2015

$4M Chelsea Loft Boasts Tons of Stylish Space Inside and Out

By Emily Nonko

This Chelsea co-op, located at 139 West 19th Street, has got lots of things going for it: it's super stylish, has some great interior details, there's an expansive living room along with two full bedrooms and bathrooms, and it has a huge backyard that will incite envy. It's also located in a charming central location on 19th Street between 6th and 7th avenues. The cost for all this good stuff comes in at $3.895 million.
Take the tour

Distinctive Homes

October 5, 2015

$20M Tribeca Penthouse Has a 25-Foot Skylight, a Heavenly Terrace and an Industrial Past

By Michelle Cohen

Designed in 1887 for a wrapping paper manufacturer by architect Albert Wagner, who also designed the iconic Puck Building, 140 Franklin Street was converted to a 12-unit boutique residential condominium at the turn of the 21st century. Considered one of the city's most handsome Romanesque Revival-style buildings, it's a study in enviable contrasts; apartments have original cast iron columns, for example, and the building boasts a state-of-the-art water filtration system. Notable neighbors: J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler has an apartment on the fifth floor that he put on the market earlier this year for $35 million. To help put this super-fancy loft–and its fancy price of $19.95 million–in context: Penthouse A was designed for the building conversion's developer; it's on the market for the first time since the building was converted. There are 5,000 square feet of interior space on two floors, plus a spectacular 2,200 square-foot roof terrace. The unit is listed as having only seven rooms, but many of them are the kind of oversized loft space to which the term "room" almost doesn't apply.
More penthouse this way

Distinctive Homes

October 2, 2015

A Major Renovation Brought This Soho Loft From a Cheesy Bachelor Pad to an Historic Chic Crib

By Emily Nonko

It's rare that a listing gives you a backstory to the apartment it's trying to sell, but that's the case with this unit at 426 West Broadway, a condo building in Soho. Here it goes: "It literally took a year of demolition, permit wrangling, and construction to finalize this $600,000.00 renovation that saw a Pop Art-inspired bachelor pad stripped down to its 19th-century shell." The result is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom loft apartment that now relishes its "original industrial charms," as the listing calls it. Our opinion? It's a big step up from a bachelor pad. The asking price comes in at $3.5 million.
See the rest of the reno

October 1, 2015

Find Your Favorite Spaces in This Flexible South Slope Loft Duplex

By Michelle Cohen

The comfortably-configured co-op at 459 12th Street in South Park Slope starts with two levels and lots of open space–and you have the opportunity to go beyond the current two-bedroom configuration with nooks and corners that lend themselves to being used as bedrooms or opened up, loft-style. On the market for $1.2 million, this two-bedroom loft offers a wealth of charming architectural details like weathered brick walls, double-height ceilings in the main areas, a wood-burning fireplace and exposed ceiling beams. Oversized windows offer Manhattan skyline views (the apartment is a third-floor walk-up, so great light, but no elevator).
Tour the loft, this way...

Distinctive Homes

September 30, 2015

A Flatiron Loft That’s Rocking Exposed Brick Asks $3.85 Million

By Emily Nonko

All New York City loft lovers should check out this apartment for sale at 11 West 20th Street, a prewar Flatiron condo building. It's a big space with two bedrooms, a den, home office, and three full bathrooms, plus plenty of those lofty prewar details. High ceilings and big windows, of course, are a given, and then there's tons of exposed brick to go around. You'll find it in most every room, some natural and some of it whitewashed. Now on the market, this apartment is asking $3.85 million.
See inside

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September 28, 2015

Vishaan Chakrabarti, Principal at SHoP Architects, Sells Flatiron Loft for $5M

By Annie Doge

SHoP Architects is known for its cutting-edge designs, from supertall towers like 111 West 57th Street to massive schemes like the Domino Sugar Factory. So it comes as a bit of a surprise that one of the firm's principals, Vishaan Chakrabarti, chose to settle down in a rather traditional Flatiron loft. But perhaps he's looking to get in on the luxury condo trend that SHoP is such a part of, as he and his wife Maria Altaris (also an architect) have unloaded their massive pad at 12 West 17th Street for $4,995,000, according to city records released today. Chakrabarti previously served as the director of the Manhattan office for the Department of City Planning, as well as a senior executive at the Related Companies. In addition to his current role at SHoP, he is a professor at the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia. The architect couple bought the full-floor, three-bedroom unit in 2012 for a significantly lower price of $2,725,000 after moving from a duplex in Tribeca with their young son and daughter. Chakrabarti told the Times at the time, "When I decided to become an architect and a professor instead of a real estate developer, it required a little lifestyle shift. More work for less pay." Not deterred, however, they undertook a gut renovation, clearly referencing their design history books and outfitting the 2,500-square-foot space with modern Chesterfield sofas, a Saarinen dining table, Eames chair, and Barcelona bench.
Look around the loft here

September 23, 2015

Enormous Greenwich Village Loft Above an Art House Cinema Awaits Your Vision

By Michelle Cohen

This raw-edged, sprawling 3,250 square-foot loft at 34 West 13th Street, on a bustling yet somehow old-school Greenwich Village street is on the market for the first time since the building became a cooperative in the 1970s. Formerly an acting school–there are two stages built in, which could be kind of cool if you're the theatrical type–the space is currently configured as a two bedroom with a laundry room, a big open kitchen/dining room, a living area and a hall gallery. Located between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, it's above the Quad Cinema indie theater (set to reopen with a big renovation this fall), which is also great if you love the movies. The ask is $5.25 million, and there are several suggested floor plans (see the photo gallery ahead), should you want to create a three- or four-bedroom home.
Find out more about this huge loft space

Distinctive Homes

September 23, 2015

$7.4 Million Noho Loft Wins Award for Coolest Windows Ever

By Emily Nonko

What's a loft apartment without the big windows? In this case, at a co-op for sale in Noho, windows are everything. Located inside Bleecker Tower at 644 Broadway, it's a sprawling, open loft with floor-to-ceiling arched windows reaching 13 feet high and spanning 20 feet wide. That's paired with upgrades and restorations to the space, which was formerly known as the Manhattan Savings Institute bank building when it was built in 1898. As a residence, it's so impressive that it won the American Institute of Architects award for Outstanding Interiors in 2015. And you can now own it for $7.495 million.
See more

Distinctive Homes

September 22, 2015

A Gigantic Duplex Loft Is Priced at $14.95 Million in SoHo

By Emily Nonko

When it comes to this condo listing at 158 Mercer Street in SoHo, it is go big or go home. The apartment is actually a combination of two units, making for a duplex with an impressive 7,000 (!) square feet. Throw in five bedrooms, six bathrooms, and direct elevator access, and you've got one very fancy, very huge loft apartment. As you may guess, something like this doesn't come cheap. It's now on the market for $14.95 million.
Take a look

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September 18, 2015

A Hip, Modern Condo at Greenpoint’s Pencil Factory is Asking $800K

By Emily Nonko

Does it get anymore Brooklyn than this? A new development condo designed to look like a loft, outfitted with bookshelves, deer heads, and reclaimed wood furniture. The apartment in question comes from The Pencil Factory lofts, a former pencil factory turned condo development at 122 West Street in Greenpoint. Cool location, cool building, cool apartment—it's going to cost you a cool $800,000 for this one-bedroom unit.
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September 17, 2015

This Nomad Loft Was Created With Curbside Finds, Elbow Grease and an Eye for Beauty

By Michelle Cohen

There was a time in NYC when there wasn't an expectation that an apartment or loft come with a full set of shiny new appliances and amenities; you could carve out a space for yourself over time, and end up with a beautiful, unique and comfortable home. That's about the time–1977, to be exact–when the owners of this cool and crafty Nomad loft, then a recent co-op conversion, bought it for $50,000 and moved in. Now this large two-bedroom 12th floor loft with a private terrace is on the rental market for $8,000 a month. The owners–she was an art historian who passed away about a year ago, he's a retired biophysicist–and their daughter had always been fond of the excitement of scavenging what others left behind–like a six-burner restaurant stove and what is now a veritable jungle of plants. The building had been used for light manufacturing, and the couple had to design the entire 1,620-square-foot space to make it a home. Since the space was completely raw, they could configure it any way they pleased. The loft was featured in a 2006 article in the Times, in which the home's late owner and main design force is described as having "a gimlet eye for the gorgeous."
Take a look around, this way...

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