Rent the East Village party pad where Bret Easton Ellis wrote ‘American Psycho’

The East Village loft owned by novelist and literary bad boy Bret Easton Ellis is available for rent for $5,900 per month. Ellis has been renting out the studio apartment since he decamped for Los Angeles a decade ago; he told the Observer he’s been holding on to the 950-square-foot, second-floor condo in the American Felt Building at 114 East 13th Street as a back-up plan, “if Los Angeles just doesn’t work out.” The “American Psycho” scribe says he spent the late ’80s living in the lofty studio–in his early 20s at the time–writing the iconic 1991 novel of late 20th century privilege, materialism and delusion and throwing massive Holly Golightly-esque bashes packed with his contemporaries back in the day in an East Village very different from today’s.

Not only do you get to live with the author’s early-career debauchery vibes, you can enjoy his minimalist-bachelor furniture: The loft is available either furnished or not. The studio features a wave ceiling, and perhaps best of all in anyone’s book, a rare extra-large terrace of approximately 350 square feet.

Ellis told the Observer, “I did write [American Psycho] in that apartment. I was working on it in 1987, 1988, 1989. The whole drama played out in the apartment.” ArchDaily created an interactive 3D model of “Psycho” main character Patrick Bateman’s sterile bachelor-pad apartment. Similarities? Perhaps.

Ellis remembers the very different pre-gentrification East Village and a Union Square Park that was “dead, filled with junkies and homeless people,” but chose the apartment because it suited his style: “There was nothing like it at that time downtown…I did want a loft-like space and I did want a doorman. It was very rare to find that. The layout of the apartment just spoke to me, I can’t explain why. The high ceilings, the wall of windows, the patio, the massive bathroom.”

The American Felt Building has its own industrial-era vibe that’s just as cool, along with a roof deck, a private garden off the lobby and a discreet 24-hour staff–so everyone from budding literary pop stars to murderous mentally unbalanced fictional protagonists should feel right at home.

[Via NYO]

[Listing: 114 East 13th Street #2D by Miles Chapin for Brown Harris Stevens]

[At CityRealty.com]

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Images courtesy of Brown Harris Stevens