“For years I wanted to live in a town house, but that desire morphed as the kids got older. Lives change. We had a cottage in Montauk, but then our kids grew up—literally,” she says with a laugh. “One is five-ten and the other is six-foot-two. So, now we have a big house in Montauk.” That larger beach house freed her from the need for a big city place, and so, like many empty nesters, the couple decided to downsize. “I am always looking,” she says. “Sometimes it seemed I must have looked at every apartment in the neighborhood.”
She got lucky when a two-bedroom duplex smack in the center of the Village came on the market. “I had always wanted this apartment,” she confesses. “I had spotted it when I was wandering.” Perched on a high floor, every window takes in the city views she loves—water towers, decorative brick and tilework, arches and columns, and rooftop gardens. And its sprawling terraces eased the pain of losing her lush garden. The building had been constructed in the 1920s as a residential hotel. “Most of the units are studios or one-bedrooms,” she explains. “Because of that, there’s a diverse group who live here, lots of young people in small apartments or older people who have been here for years. It’s super funky.”