Thank heaven New York still has a few flatout crazy people left. And that they don't live on our block. I clicked on the NYT slideshow hoping to see more pictures of the cuh-razy fun real estate battle brewing on a boring block of the "Village" [15th between 6th & 7th is the Village now?] where some developer bought the building next door to their house and is building a tower with a $6.6mm, wacked out, pod penthouse cantilevered off the top. What'd I get instead?
A tour of the Rath family's wood-lined duplex, which was inspired by one of the world's great rivers, the Amazon. [haha, if only. It was actually the Yangtze] Do I need to add they did most of the work themselves? You can't just buy vision like this off the shelf.
The fiber optic stars in the 2-story living/family room ceiling re-create the constellations as seen on the Yangtze [and, presumably the rest of the Northern Hemisphere]. The 20'-high waterfall/fireplace/koi pond follows the shape of the Yangtze. [If only they had a grand piano, it'd look just like that great Korean BBQ on 32nd street. North side, just east of Bway, name escapes me. Anyone?] Do I need to tell you they excavated it themselves with 5-gallon pickle buckets?
And the twins' nursery has a backlit, Lite-Brite-style drop ceiling version of Vincent Van Gogh's masterpiece, Starry Night Over The Yangtze.
Not In My Front Yard [nyt]
Slideshow: Water as an Inspiration [nyt]
123w15 [123w15.com]
Previously with the in-floor pools: Architect builds tripped out dreamhome, then has twins
Wow. It's so hard for me to fathom doing so much with so little square footage. And you still have neighbors. Wacky urbanites!