LOCATON: New York City, NY
PRICE: $3,872,500
SIZE: (approx.) 1,500 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Let's piggyback this sunny Monday morning on last week's report in The Real Deal about two-time Oscar nominated actor Willem Dafoe and his Italian-born filmmaker wife Giada Colagrande moving on up to a (fairly compact) penthouse atop a converted, turn of the century factory on a cobble stoned street on the chic and pricey border between the West Village and the Meatpacking District in New York City.
Online listing details don't indicate the square footage for the loft-style co-operative apartment—Your Mama guesstimates it at about 1,500—but do show there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a keyed elevator and video intercom entry, and—for New York City—downright cheap monthly maintenance charges of $1,659 that include the property taxes.
Normally this woefully jaded celebrity property gossip can't be bothered to get our real estate dander up over a $4 million two bedroom "penthouse" in the Big Apple's formerly boho now preposterously gentrified West Village. But this one, children, despite its A+ location and high quality finishes just doesn't seem very four million dollar penthouse-y to Your Mama. Indeed, it's not so much a penthouse as it's a top floor apartment. We're not knocking Mister Dafoe for his real estate choice, at least we don't mean to. We think he's genuinely talented and has in the past shown a wonderfully eccentric proclivity for interesting architecture; He owned a black neoprene sheathed house near Accord in upstate New York that he had on the market back in 2008 for $850,000.
However, hunny bunnies, while the 12.5-foot ceilings are pretty great, the original oak floors are lovely, and the apartment's 11 arched windows flood the downtown aerie with natural light and provide expansive—if not exactly scintillating—city views there isn't so much as a single square foot of private outdoor space. Your Mama is not and will not likely ever be in the market for a $4 million dollar penthouse in New York City (or anywhere else) but, iffin we were, at least a postage stamp sized bit of terrace would be a requirement for any $4 million penthouse we might consider for purchase.
Furthermore, the second bedroom is—let's be honest—barely bigger than a two-man prison cell and the master bedroom isn't all that much bigger. Plus, there isn't a proper master bathroom. Sure, there's one marked "MASTER BATH" on the floor plan included with digital marketing materials but it's inconveniently down a short hall and around the corner (and part way through the entry hall). The second bathroom is even more troublesome as it's barely bigger than a decent sized closet an opens directly off the dining area of the main living space. Imagine a dinner guest's mortification at having to use the restroom after dinner and accidentally having a roast lamb and mashed turnips induced bit of gas noisily slip out or having to listen to your mother-in-law tinkle in the morning while you're making coffee. No thank you very much.
As it turns out, this isn't the first apartment Mister Dafoe and Miz Colagrande have purchased in the converted factory building. In September 2005, as per Your Mama's research on the internets, the artsy-fartsy, high-cultured couple paid $1.6 million for a similarly sized apartment on a lower floor.
Mister Dafoe finally sold his rubber-wrapped house in Accord, NY, according to property records, in June 2012 for $435,000 and in May 2008 paid actress Brooke Smith and cinematographer Steven Lubensky $393,000 for a one-ish acre spread on a bucolic lane in upstate New York near the tiny town of High Falls.
listing photos and floor plan: Peter McCuen and Associates
0 comments:
Post a Comment