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Big Homes Without a Lawn to Mow
By
Dave Hogarty
Published Sep 9, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Dave Hogarty
Published Sep 9, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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The New York Times describes a trend towards families with multiple children and a lot of money opting out of moving to large houses in the suburbs like Westchester. Instead, they are buying multiple adjacent residences in Manhattan highrises and shaping their own 4,000 to 8,500 square foot homes in the city. The Times dubs them Mansions in the Sky. The floorplan above is the "after" portion from the Times graphic of a man who combined five apartments and a studio into one very large four-bedroom home.
With few apartments that large available, many buyers are resorting to buying five or six adjacent apartments to create homes of a suitable size. Developers are taking notice, however, and Gary Barnett, the head of Extell Development Corp., said that he was planning on incorporating apartments sized from 4,500 to 8,500 square feet in future buildings to accomadate buyers like another family featured in the article, which just purchased a six bedroom duplex on the Upper West Side in a 31-story building.
Behind the trend is the growth of married couples choosing to have (and being able to afford) more children and wanting to remain in the city. Brokers also attribute the growing number of mega-residences in the city as an element of 'keeping up with the Joneses' at a time when some people have accumulated an enormous amount of wealth.
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