The Hunt: Moving Three Generations to Morningside Heights

Della, second from left, and Isaac Brooks, right, looked for an apartment where their daughter, Phoebe, second from right, and Della’s mother, Dolly, left, could live together. Also joining them is their dog, Juno. Credit Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

 

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For 27 years, the Brooks family — Isaac and Della, plus their son and daughter — lived happily in their six-bedroom, three-story Arts-and-Crafts-style house in Yonkers. It was less than a 10-minute drive from Horace Mann School in the Bronx, where both Brookses are teachers.

Last spring, a good friend of theirs, on the hunt for a one-bedroom in Manhattan, visited a co-op unit on West 82nd Street. The Brookses went, too. After meeting their friend’s agent, Ellen Klein, an associate broker at the Corcoran Group, they started thinking. With their children grown and gone, their 3,000-square-foot-house was far too big. They were toying with the idea of someday moving to the city themselves. Maybe they could buy a one-bedroom, use it as a pied-à-terre and share it with their daughter, Phoebe, 26, who was living with a roommate in Brooklyn. Her brother, Dylan, 29, lives in Texas.

They mentioned their plan to Ms. Brooks’s recently widowed mother, Dolly Barr, who lived in a brick rowhouse in Flushing, Queens. “No room for me?” she asked. So they resolved to hunt for a three-bedroom for all of them. Waiting for retirement might make it hard to get a mortgage. “When you retire, you are a different kind of risk,” Mr. Brooks said.

The couple, now in their 50s, wanted a bright three-bedroom in a location near public transportation. They preferred the Upper West Side, convenient to their workplace. And both knew the neighborhood, having gone to Teachers College at Columbia University. (They met as undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania.) The budget was around $1.5 million.

UPPER WEST SIDE A three-bedroom co-op had prewar charm but an isolating kitchen layout. Credit Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

Phoebe, an actor, was on board. Living with her parents would allow her to take out-of-town gigs without paying rent for an unused room or finding a subletter. “The prospect of living in Manhattan overjoyed her as much as it did us,” Ms. Brooks said.

Ms. Klein suggested the Brookses attend open houses to study the market. They assumed they would sell both houses and rent while they hunted for a long-term place.

They viewed a co-op unit on Riverside Drive near 105th Street, listed at $1.595 million, with maintenance of around $1,800. But the narrow kitchen was a problem.

“When Isaac was cooking, he couldn’t be with his guests, and that was a very big deal to him,” Ms. Klein said. And the walk to the subway was uphill. It sold for $1.625 million.

Ms. Klein had them see a new condominium conversion of a 1979 building in Midtown West, near the theater district. (The Brookses have nine theater subscriptions.) But modern wasn’t their style. “It was so not us,” Ms. Brooks said.

HELL’S KITCHEN A new renovation in a modern style was worth a glance but “so not us.” Credit Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

Mr. Brooks went alone to an open house in Morningside Heights, a lovely 1911 condominium building filled with original charm. The listing price was $1.599 million, with monthly charges of around $2,300.

It had the light and layout they wanted. To avoid undue influence, Mr. Brooks didn’t convey his enthusiasm to his wife.

When she went, she loved it, too. The third bedroom was tiny “even by maid’s room standards,” she said, and the closet space, though ample, was distributed unevenly. “I knew that there was going to be a compromise somewhere,” she said.

They made an offer immediately and even wrote a letter to the seller, noting their love for the apartment and the opportunities they foresaw for their lives there.

Meanwhile, an earlier deal fell through, Ms. Klein said, and their offer of $1.58 million was accepted.

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS A rent-to-buy deal succeeded in a condo building with the right layout. Credit Stephanie Diani for The New York Times

The purchase, however, was contingent upon the sale of their Yonkers house. The parties reached a deal whereby the Brookses would rent the apartment and buy it if their house sold within six months. Otherwise, it would return to the market.

Within two weeks, they had an offer on their Yonkers house, which they had restored to its original 1908 condition, to the point of flying a 1908 flag, with 46 stars.

The family cleared the house out — the people running their sale told them the trick was not to decide what they didn’t want, but to decide what they did want — and moved in the fall, along with their dog, Juno. The Queens house is in contract.

City living, and togetherness, suits them. A trip to school previously required a car. Now, though the trip is farther, the Brookses can drive or take the 1 train to Van Cortlandt Park-242nd Street, allowing them to travel separately if schedules don’t coincide.

The move, Mr. Brooks said, “has reinvented time for us.” Errands are quick, as are trips to the theater and museums. One day they went to a matinee and hosted friends in the evening.

“That would never have happened in Yonkers,” he said. “If you were out, that day was done.” He cooked, as usual, for his guests. “If we forget an ingredient,” he said, “we just go across the street.”

Copyright © 2016 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with Permission. Stephanie Diani/The New York Times. 

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