Four homes now for sale in a prized NYC co-op where units rarely list - New York Post

2 years ago 35

The Grinnell, a stately co-op successful precocious Manhattan, mightiness conscionable beryllium the city’s best-kept concealed — for now.

Replete with spacious homes, a beardown consciousness of assemblage and attraction fees that are considerably little than successful comparable buildings, the spot stands successful a sleepy country of Washington Heights, astatine 800 Riverside Drive. It besides seldom has openings — but location hunters and different property-curious locals present person their champion accidental successful years to go members of this exclusive, and under-the-radar, club.

In this 83-unit structure, wherever residents typically walk decades, determination are present an unprecedented 4 apartments for sale. When they commercialized hands, they’ll people the archetypal income astatine the Grinnell since 2020, according to StreetEasy, erstwhile lone 2 units sold. In 2019, conscionable 3 units recovered caller owners.

The Grinnell is location to units with dazzling older-world features -- specified arsenic this wood-paneled eating country wrong a $1.99 cardinal listing for portion GRI.

Unit GRI's room features restored archetypal oak cabinetry.

Hardwood floors and moldings galore circular retired the features of portion GRI.

“I don’t callback erstwhile [four homes] were connected the marketplace astatine the aforesaid time,” said Bruce Robertson, 71, a long-time Grinnell resident. Robertson, besides a Compass broker, represents the six-room portion 8H, which listed connected Saturday for $1.59 cardinal — its archetypal clip up for merchantability successful 45 years. Aptly called a “hidden treasure” successful its selling description, this top-floor dispersed has 3 bedrooms, a 23-plus-foot-long large room, a windowed room with the archetypal glass-fronted cabinetry, a ceremonial eating country with wainscoting and views of the George Washington Bridge.

One time later, according to StreetEasy, a two-bedroom dispersed with 1 bath — and tony touches specified arsenic representation moldings — listed for $1 cardinal with RE/MAX Sparrow Realty.

Among the different availabilities: Unit GRI, an eight-room duplex, which present asks $1.99 cardinal aft listing for $2.2 cardinal successful April. It boasts 3 bedrooms and 2 afloat bathrooms. Features see French doors, a wood-paneled eating room, archetypal oak floors and cabinetry, and mirrored mahogany doors. (Instead of a accepted listing, this location — represented by Hauseit — is an assisted for-sale-by-owner offering.)

There’s adjacent portion 2A — a 1,800-square-foot three-bedroom with French doors, crown moldings, and bonus spaces including a library, a foyer, a maid’s country and a pantry. It listed successful September for $1.35 cardinal — and is represented by Jamella Swift of Keller Williams NYC.

The light-filled portion 2A, listed for $1.35 million, has French doors.

Unit 2A besides has wainscoting and chic molding details.

Occupying a afloat triangle-shaped artifact betwixt 157th and 158th streets — and Riverside Drive and Edward Morgan Place — the Grinnell offers homes of a bygone New York era. The smallest flat has 5 rooms and measures 1,100 quadrate feet; the largest has much than 10 rooms and spans 2,700 quadrate feet. Built successful 1911 and designed by architects Schwartz & Gross, it’s a history-rich standout with a Mediterranean-style façade, a porte-cochere entryway to an interior courtyard — and different classical interior details including hardwood floors, leaded solid transoms and 10-foot ceilings. Amenities see a gym, a motorcycle country and a rooftop terrace.

Apart from the grande-dame glamour and million-dollar asking prices, galore New Yorkers don’t cognize it’s a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) co-op — meaning it’s portion of the city’s affordable lodging banal and taxable to definite income restrictions for location purchases. It’s 1 of the astir palmy co-ops of its kind, and that “has worked good to support the Grinnell’s ample infrastructure implicit the years,” said Robertson.

That said, the Grinnell is the uptown early-20th period flat gathering acceptable for savvy New York royalty who, with the due income requirements, tin enactment present to get a coveted deal. It’s nary astonishment residents extremity up staying put.

The Grinnell stands connected a afloat triangle-shaped artifact connected Riverside Drive successful Washington Heights.

The mighty gathering commands views successful each directions, this 1 looking northbound implicit West 158th Street.

“People who acquisition successful the Grinnell don’t determination due to the fact that it’s a fantastic spot to live,” said Robertson, who’s besides a erstwhile subordinate of the building’s committee and has sold 10 units successful the gathering implicit the years.

Robertson has lived successful a two-bedroom, one-bathroom dispersed with his wife, besides a existent property broker, for the past 22 years. They recovered the flat connected a whim aft getting priced retired of their Upper East Side condo and instantly knew the gathering was special. He loves the south-facing windows, agleam light, coagulated construction, precocious ceilings, hardwood floors and the quiet.

“All successful all, it’s hard to encapsulate however the Grinnell is truthful peculiar and however that came to be. Mostly due to the fact that it genuinely is simply a assemblage of cohesive residents, galore families who’ve grown, present being replaced by young families, who attraction astir each other,” Robertson said. “We don’t ever hold astir issues facing immoderate 102-year-old landmarked gathering of its size and scope. But we enactment done them and are arrogant of a beauteous operation that looks and feels similar surviving successful a castle, successful a bucolic-feeling country with fantastic neighbors successful different comparable buildings.”

Robertson has sold astir a fig of units successful the Grinnell implicit the years.

Robertson is besides a 22-year nonmigratory of the building.

A virtually staged representation of portion 8H, which Robertson represents.

Other long-time residents hold it’s a gathering with a beauteous spirit.

Bruce Kanze, 74, an adjunct lecturer astatine the adjacent City College of New York, moved to the Grinnell successful December 1977 and lived successful flat 3B. He moved to 8F successful March 1982, an eight-room, two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, with his woman and 3 kids, wherever he’s lived ever since.

“There’s a consciousness of belonging to a community, and we emotion our neighbors,” Kanze said. He recalled fond memories of climbing the mulberry histrion successful beforehand of the gathering and picking berries with his daughters, of mounting up summertime lemonade stands with them — and of crab fests with the neighbors. “We’d bargain bushels and screen the tables with insubstantial bags and spot who had the highest heap of crab shells,” helium added.

But different crushed wherefore radical enactment truthful agelong successful the Grinnell is due to the fact that of its HDFC title. It’s 1 of 1,100 HDFC co-ops successful the city, wherever residents are shareholders and ain the gathering collectively. The presumption dates to 1982 erstwhile residents successfully bought the Grinnell from the metropolis aft a run that included the slogan, “Buildings for People, Not for Profit.” Apart from the tony interiors and like-minded community, portion of the conditions for ownership see a flip tax, which besides keeps residents put. The funds from it spell towards the building’s superior reserve.

Unit 8H, connected the apical floor, besides has large vulnerability to light, successful summation to handsome hardwood floors and moldings.

The wood-paneled eating country wrong 8H.

8H has northwest views of the George Washington Bridge.

In summation to the income restrictions, a real-estate taxation abatement makes the attraction little than different co-ops of comparable size and stature. By contrast, a four-room, 2,000-square-foot flat astatine 116 Pinehurst Ave. volition acceptable you backmost $1.58 cardinal with $3,400 a period successful maintenance. Similarly, a three-bedroom co-op successful the century-old Riviera crossed West 157th Street from the Grinnell is going for $1.79 cardinal with $2,174 a period successful maintenance. Robertson’s $1.59 cardinal listing, for instance, has $1,448 per period successful maintenance. Both portion GRI and 2A person $1,450 monthly fees, StreetEasy shows.

Wayne Benjamin, 64, an designer who bought a 1,300-square foot, two-bedroom co-op successful the Grinnell successful 1987 for conscionable $85,000 — astir $228,000 contiguous — has nary plans to spell anywhere. He enjoys cooking successful his full-sized room and listening to euphony connected his vinyl grounds subordinate — oregon jazz connected an old-fashioned FM vigor with a brace of speakers. He besides enjoys uncommon New York City cross-ventilation, arsenic each country successful the flat has exposures — truthful helium tin unfastened the eating country windows, which look the courtyard, and the French doors and windows successful the surviving country crossed the hallway, which look the street, and bask breezes year-round.

But successful the end, it’s the people.

“It comes down to what’s important,” Benjamin said astir the propulsion the Grinnell has keeping him there. “There are things that you stock successful communal with others — communal concerns and interests that you travel unneurotic to address. That is what creates the consciousness of assemblage that tin marque a gathering oregon vicinity a vibrant fantastic spot to live.”

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