A Place to Make Music, but Not Noise

AFTER graduating from the Juilliard School, Monica Ohuchi Bunch practiced and taught on her upright piano. Two years ago, she upgraded to a Steinway Grand, Model B, nearly seven feet long.

 

It had to be lifted, via crane, into the apartment she shared with her husband, Kenji Bunch. They watched with their hearts in their throats as it entered their window, on the top floor of a four-story brick town house in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Once it was in place, “I felt, I am never going to leave,” Mrs. Bunch said.

 

The couple had an ideal setup, with around 1,600 square feet of space. Mrs. Bunch’s piano was on one end of the apartment, while Mr. Bunch’s office — he’s a composer and viola player — was on the other. When she practiced, they closed the door in the middle so he could work without distraction.

 

They were friendly with their neighbors and their landlady. Concerned that the noise might bother others, they had a sound insulation platform installed beneath the piano.

 

Over time, their rent rose from $1,700 to $1,900 to $2,100. “Something about going over $2,000 seemed like the tipping point,” said Mr. Bunch, who also graduated from Juilliard. So, last winter, the couple decided to buy a place of their own.

 

The two, who are both from the West Coast, hoped to remain in or near Cobble Hill, where many of Mrs. Bunch’s students live. They needed a living room large enough to hold the piano, plus some kind of separate area where Mr. Bunch could work. Their price range, in the mid-$300,000s, soon rose into the $400,000s. Even that, however, was low for the neighborhood. “Because we were coming from such a large space,” Mrs. Bunch said, “everything was too small.”

 

The couple, both in their 30s, thought a top or bottom floor would work, as would a duplex. “For some reason,” Mrs. Bunch said, “I had it in my head that if I was going to take the piano somewhere else, it would be a place where I couldn’t have too many neighbors on too many sides of me.”

 

A ground-floor two-bedroom in a prewar co-op on Lincoln Place in Prospect Heights was advertised as “sharing no walls with any other unit.” The asking price was $399,000, with a monthly maintenance of $734. There the Bunches met Sarah Rouse, an associate broker at the Corcoran Group’s office in Park Slope. That unit quickly sold for $375,000, but Ms. Rouse e-mailed the Bunches a list of possibilities, all condominiums.

 

“As two professional musicians with one giant piano,” Mr. Bunch said, “that seemed pretty tough to sell to a co-op board.” And they also knew a board might well disapprove of their dog, Coffee, who is part pit bull.

 

Plenty of places were available in Prospect Heights, and prices were negotiable, Ms. Rouse said, but “I didn’t want them to end up in a place where the piano would take up the entire living room.”

 

At an eight-unit condominium building on Sterling Place, the ground-floor units, with private yards, were already spoken for, and the top-floor duplexes too pricey. But the Bunches liked a one-bedroom of about 850 square feet, listed at $384,000, with monthly fees around $500.

 

They did an informal noise test, with one of them pounding on the walls while the other stood in the apartment across the hall. “I was afraid of being ‘that annoying neighbor with the piano,’ ” Mrs. Bunch said. But the building was well insulated and the noise situation seemed fine.

 

“We really liked the feel of this building,” Mr. Bunch said. After sitting on the couch “in the demo apartment, I didn’t want to leave.”

 

The Bunches intended to bid $330,000. But first they wanted to see a ground-floor duplex on Bergen Street with more than 1,000 square feet.

 

“Seeing that much space, that’s what swayed us” into deciding they needed a bigger apartment, Mrs. Bunch said. That one was $429,000, plus almost $400 in monthly charges.

 

The office area, however, received little light, and the ground-floor location felt exposed. “It felt funny to have this big grand piano on display,” Mr. Bunch said. They decided to move on. (That one later sold for around $425,000.)

 

Another Bergen Street apartment, with almost 1,100 square feet, was listed for only $410,000. It was atop the building’s parking garage, with no neighbors beneath. But a tax abatement for the building was still pending, and projected monthly costs were too high for them to qualify for a mortgage, Ms. Rouse said.

 

“That was heartbreaking, because it seemed perfect for our needs,” Mrs. Bunch said.

 

Still, they had been comparing everything with the Sterling Place building. A 1,020-square-foot two-bedroom there — the one they had been in when pounding on the walls — was listed at $464,000. “I didn’t even let myself entertain the idea of: What if we could live here,” Mrs. Bunch said. But, with help from their families, they could. After several rounds of negotiations, the Bunches were able to buy the two-bedroom for $440,000, with a down payment of $180,000.

 

When they arrived in the summer, moving the piano was their first task. Two piano movers they consulted told them it would fit, but barely.

 

Again, the crane came into play. Hoisting the piano out of the old place “was about the easiest part of the move,” Mr. Bunch said. “It went without a hitch.” But watching the piano enter its new home was “kind of horrific.” It was maneuvered up the stairs by “three guys who don’t appear to have superhuman strength, but they know the angles and were so experienced they were able to do it.”

 

During the $5,000 move, the piano suffered minor damage. “You are not supposed to move a piano where the whole weight rests on the keys and the strings,” Mrs. Bunch said, “and because of the angle of the stairway they had to do that.” But her piano tuner was able to make repairs.

 

Now, the Bunches and their piano, resting on its platform, feel right at home. Their new building is as friendly as their old one, and they have had no noise complaints. “We tell people we are musicians and we have a grand piano in our apartment, and they think it’s cool,” Mrs. Bunch said. She is a bit self-conscious, though, because some music does escape into the hallway. “I wonder if there is any way we can soundproof the door area,” she said.

 

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Copyright © 2010 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission.  Photos should be credited as follows:  Tina Fineberg/The New York Times.