After spotlighting a carriage house in Maspeth and a designer couple’s secluded Flatbush cul-de-sac townhouse, this week, we were intent on finding a particularly special apartment. And we found one on East 74st Street, on the third-floor of a limestone-anchored neo-Italian Renaissance building designed by Lafayette A. Goldstone, who was one of the earliest architects to work on co-ops on the Upper East Side. The 1929 building (where, incidentally, Jackie Kennedy would visit her father in the years after her parents divorced) is just a few blocks from Central Park and has a panoramic wallpaper from Zuber in the lobby.
The unit itself has a ton of space (both the living room and main bedroom are huge, and the second bedroom is still a solid 10’ 11” x 10 ’9”), plus a move-in-ready kitchen and bath, for a price that wouldn’t even be that shocking for a one-bedroom in the area. (The asking was actually originally $1,175,000, but the sellers upped it by $75,000 just one day after listing because interest was already pouring in.)
The sellers have owned the unit since 2003 and have renovated it twice in that time. When they first moved in, they added built-in window seats under the casement windows in the living room as well as built-in bookshelves on both walls — which match the original arched doorways in the foyer and in the living room leading to the main bedroom.
The second major renovation happened in 2011 and was focused on the kitchen. They gutted it to incorporate extra-tall custom cabinets and drawers, marble counters, a Viking range, Sub-Zero fridge (and wine fridge), a double sink (under a window) with Franke hardware, plus an eat-in area with built-in seating and storage underneath.
And there are plenty of other fairly lovely details. The wood-burning fireplace and (nearly ten feet high) beamed ceilings, for instance, are both original. Natural sisal covers the walls in the second bedroom (currently used as a library), there’s a marble vanity in the bathroom (which can be accessed by both bedrooms), and glass door knobs abound. While all the windows in the unit have a view of trees, the scene is especially verdant from the living room and master bedroom, which overlook a well-kept common courtyard.
