Looking for your own California oasis? It’s near the corner of W. 23rd. St. and Seventh Ave., on top of the former McBurney YMCA building, so high above the street you’d never know it’s there. But take the elevator up nine floors, and suddenly you’re in Malibu – and out nearly $9 million.
With exposures in four directions, tons of floor-to-ceiling windows and no neighbors on the floor, the space feels like it has been airlifted from the west coast and placed on top of the Beaux Arts-style building. Dubbed the Chelsea Skyhouse in marketing materials, it was built in the mid-2000s when the lower floors were converted to condominiums.
“The beauty of the building is that no two floors were the same,” said Shaun Osher, the CEO of CORE who represented the building’s sponsor during the conversion. Each floor had different ceiling heights and features – one apartment in the building that once served as a gymnasium and running track has soaring ceilings.
The penthouse is 6,000 square feet inside, and got a whopping 7,000 square feet of outside space that is divided among three levels of terraces. A dramatic floating staircase rises up through a 30-foot atrium.
The space is currently configured with four bedrooms – all with access to outside terraces. Family room and library areas are separated with partial walls, and since the owners are art collectors, all were built reinforced to create a gallery-like space to display works.
But it is hard to take your eyes off the views. Looking west, windows frame the Frank Gehry-designed IAC Headquarters and the nearby iconic Chelsea Hotel. Look east and you can see the Metropolitan Life Tower’s clock faces at 1 Madison Ave. You can also spot the Empire State building and views of the Hudson.
The apartment was staged with furniture by Interior Marketing Group (BRYAN SMITH FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
“People in the suburbs don’t have backyards this big,” said Emily Beare, a managing director with CORE who shares the listing with Christian Rogers. “You have the privacy of a townhouse but you get this view – and all this light.”
(BRYAN SMITH FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
The space has been on and off the market – once for as high as $15 million. Beare and Rogers have held the listing for about a year, and think that the time is right for a sale as the demand in the city for large, high-end property continues to rise, and scaffolding that was up for exterior maintenance work has recently been taken down.
“This is like a living gallery,” Beare said. “The apartment itself is a work of art.”