Itinerantdaughter's Blog

Thinking, as usual, about my current real estate obsession, the Villa Charlotte Bronte.

“To get to one apartment, you have to go down two flights toward the Hudson, then turn right and go up two flights to the front door. Another front door is behind a small arched grotto. A third is at the end of a thin, high-flying concrete walkway with a skinny iron railing, cantilevered out over a long and nasty drop to the railroad tracks below.

“The two buildings are like a fantasy sand castle for the Amalfi coast designed by M. C. Escher. The exterior is artfully roughened stucco, with irregular brick, odd stones and bulbous roof tile in a tangle of orange, green, blue and red, as if by Antonio Gaudí. Each apartment has at least three exposures through steel casement windows, with a private entrance and a wood-burning fireplace. The Hudson River views range from sliver to sumptuous. The complex is surrounded by a network of walkways threaded through lush planted areas.”