Other than the Sambal Lady’s almost-annual backyard cookout event, Chris and I have never really been in a real house in the city limits of New York. I’ve been to some very spacious, near palatial condos and co-ops owned by much older Wellesley alums when I used to attend college alumnae events more often, but even then, they were still apartment buildings — not standalone houses. I know no one who owns a brownstone or full-family house in New York City. If someone I know owns a house nearby, it’s likely in Staten Island, Long Island, Westchester, or New Jersey. To date, no one I personally know, am related to, or am friends with owns a real house in New York City. People can barely afford apartments here, so who can really afford a standalone house?
Today, for the first time in my almost 18 years of being here, I visited a friend at her home that she moved into about 1.5 years ago, just shortly before we met. She invited the three of us over for a close friends get-together, which we subsequently found out was for one of the friend’s birthdays. The home is a standalone house in Prospect Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn — a four-bedroom, three-bath home with backyard and a backyard patio. There are four levels in the home, and before they moved in, it was gut renovated with mostly new flooring and appliances. As we got the house tour and I marveled over all the interesting fixtures, paintings, and knick-knacks in the house, I just kept thinking how impressive it is that they own a real house in New York City. They have clearly done well for themselves, and I could see their personalities and little touches of each of them all over the home. It felt very welcoming and homely.
One of the questions I asked my friend, given that previously, she’d always lived in an apartment, was obvious (at least, for me): how the heck do she and her husband manage the cleaning? I live in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Manhattan, and I already find the cleaning so infuriating: I wipe the dust off the toilet tank in the beginning of the morning. By the end of the day, if I were to run my finger across that same tank surface, there would be a tiny layer of dust! The dust is just never ending in New York!
Prior to moving to New York, she lived in various countries, and her family always had hired help. She was never expected to clean; the most she said she ever did was make sure clothes were removed from areas like her bed or sofas. So she said the answer was obvious: hired help! Every other week, she has a housekeeper come and spend almost the whole day cleaning the house, from top to bottom, floor to floor. She said it would be completely untenable otherwise because they’d just be constantly cleaning everything.
The more house, the more cleaning; I know that sounds a bit crazy that I’d think of that first, but this is what happens when you have an anal-retentive clean person looking at the sheer size of this space…