What’s My Line?

Over my forty years of selling apartments in New York, I have developed a particular affection for some lines of apartments. These affections are very personal. They do not necessarily relate to what is fanciest, or grandest, or best located. They are just my own personal greatest hits. Since I am still a big pre-war fan, in spite of all the attendant problems buying an old apartment in an old building, these favorites are almost all in buildings built before 1940. But there are a couple of exceptions.

First I have to confess that I come to this task with a few prejudices. I like light, so in general the apartments, grand as they may be, which have a couple of rooms facing the street or avenue and everything else facing the courtyard don’t tend to win me over. I love duplexes, especially those with a curving staircase. And perfect proportions, the golden mean of 2:3, strike a resonant chord in my heart. Thus a 20 X 30 living room will sing to me much louder than one measuring 20 X 40, although the latter is clearly a lot bigger.

I live in a lovely haute bourgeois apartment at 262 Central Park West. The rooms are not enormous but the proportions are great. It’s more comfortable than impressive, and we were drawn to it because it’s easy to get everywhere from everywhere else.

We personally did not love those thirty foot galleries between the living room and the dining room which make you feel like you need roller skates when you journey to get a drink of juice from the kitchen located all the way in the rear. That said, I love the A,B, and D apartments at 15 West 81^st St. The room sizes read large but still cozy, the views onto the planetarium are beautiful, and each master bedroom has a dressing room.

A group of uniquely odd properties which have always spoken to me are the K line duplexes high up in the Beresford at 211 Central Park West. They don’t face the Park but they are suffused with light, have little planting terraces scattered here and there, and possess a quirkiness which makes me prefer them to the grander units at the front of the building.

By and large the enormous and grand apartments in the most famous Rosario Candela designed buildings, like 740 Park, 834 Fifth, and 960 Fifth excite my admiration but not my affection. They are undoubtedly fabulous, and offer the option of seating 200 people for dinner which few apartments anywhere can. But I can never figure out where there’s a corner I could snuggle up with a book. On the other hand, Candela’s 1220 Park, located on 95^th St. at the end of Carnegie Hill before the topography descends into East Harlem, appeals to me enormously. I am particularly drawn to the C line duplexes and the 2 bedroom 2 maid’s room D apartments on the 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th floors.

With their master bedroom bathtubs inset into plaster arches, their open views to the west, and their exquisitely heavy mahogany doors, these homes epitomize the care lavished on details which define the city’s best apartments.

This is far from a comprehensive list. It doesn’t include the vast units hidden behind the bland façade of 300 West End Avenue, or the unbastardized original units at the Apthorp on 79^th and Broadway, now a condo but for decades the city’s most glamorous rental building with its room sized mosaic foyers and lavishly detailed entertaining rooms. And I confess I also love the layouts at the monstrously tall 432 Park, which have a minimalist glamour and cubic footage beyond compare.

E-mail me at fpeters@warburgrealty.com and tell me what your favorites are.