The Manhattan Times

On the market: A house in a high rise

Castle Village apartment for sale at $1.35 million

by Daniel P. Bader

Not many apartments in Northern Manhattan have 29 windows or its own laundry room. It’s rare, even in Castle Village, that a second bedroom has its own bathroom – one with a shower, to boot.

This one does.

Simone Song Properties is selling what the company calls a “house in a high rise” in Castle Village, the towering residential buildings that overlook the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge on Cabrini Boulevard.

“It’s a big apartment,” said agent Hikari Hathaway, stepping into the sixth-floor home. “2,000 square feet.”

Big is an understatement. The space – a one bedroom apartment combined with its two bedroom-plus big brother next door – is vast.

Listed at $1.35 million, the four-bedroom apartment is flooded with light from four directions. It has three bathrooms, each with either a shower or full tub, and a highly functional eat-in kitchen with stainless steel appliances and limestone countertops under maple cabinets.

“She opened the kitchen into the junior room,” Hathaway said. “Opening it up here, you make a nice eating area.”

The architecture of the apartment makes good use of space: its charm is not lost in its size.

The former galley kitchen has a thoughtfully repositioned sink and stove and the “eat-in” part is big enough for a table and six chairs.

The closet of the master bedroom was removed, making more room for the master bathroom on the other side of the wall. Two closets are built out of the wall in the bedroom with a built-in dresser. Except for the bed and maybe an end table or two, the clever construction eliminates the need for bureaus or standalone dressers.

Two of the bedrooms are currently used for living space – an office and a den – and join the more formal sunken living room for a total of three shared living areas.

There are so many windows that even the coveted laundry room – permitted at Castle Village when two apartments are combined – has a view of the river. Equally impressive to New York living is the amount of storage in the apartment. Scattered throughout the apartment are 10 closets, one wide enough that it could be counted twice.

Then there is the shared Castle Village roof.

Adirondack chairs are scattered around the roof, which has views in all directions. Residents of the building have unfettered access to sit and watch the cars march ceaselessly across the George Washington Bridge, bird watch from above the treetops that line the Hudson or, on a clear night, stargaze.

To the south, skyscrapers jut out of the landscape; to the north stretches the Palisades of New Jersey, the Bronx. “You can see all the way to Long Island,” Hathaway said, squinting to the east.

The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.