70 Lefferts Place Now a Hostel
It’s been a rough few years for 70 Lefferts Place, or, more precisely, the developer who’s owned it for the last four and a half years. To refresh, the house traded for $2,400,000 in May 2006 and soon thereafter plans were announced to tear down the Civil War-era gem. A last-minute effort to landmark the…
It’s been a rough few years for 70 Lefferts Place, or, more precisely, the developer who’s owned it for the last four and a half years. To refresh, the house traded for $2,400,000 in May 2006 and soon thereafter plans were announced to tear down the Civil War-era gem. A last-minute effort to landmark the house ended up being successful, with the designation being finalized in December 2006. Within a month, the property was back on the market. It never sold, though, and in April 2009 a Lis Pendens (the first step in the foreclosure process) was filed, revealing that the owner was on the hook for a $2,010,000 loan. We hadn’t heard much about the property since then until a few days ago when a neighbor brought this online listing for a hostel to our attention. According to the website, for $25 a night, you can have a spot in one of the many bunkbeds. The only problem is that this place doesn’t have a C of O for a hotel or even a rooming house, as far as we can tell. We also bet that the lenders would be curious to know how much the owner is renting out the place to the hostel operators for.
Brownie’s syllogism has everyone fired up.
Encroachment of a commercial outfit into a residential space is a zoning violation and very, very bad
Residential use in a commercial or manufacturing space is also a serious zoning violation, but very desirable especially when involving RISD grad or industrial designers.
Therefore, I can screw the proprietor of 70 Lefferts, because they didn’t go to RISD.
cmu- don’t go there. You don’t know.
two lunges = workout room
lookers = hot and hip bunkmate guaranteed
specious = bait and switch posting
original shudders = ghosts!!!
I’m not understanding how some of you are defending this place operating as a hostel.
Personally, I could care less either way and I think it’s kinda cool that it is a hostel because more cheap amenities are always welcome for travelers BUT the reality is it’s not LEGAL to operate a hostel in this home.
“You know as well as I do that if they, as a landmark building, asked for a zoning variance they would get it.”
So, let them go get a variance to operate as a hostel and legalize their operation.
My goodness, some people will bitch about a barking dog in a yard but will overlook something not done to building code.
Don’t forget they have “lookers”
“Specious apartment, Livining room has orginal shudders.” (1910)
Ahhh, that is poetry…
And, yes, having two lunges is important too.
Legality aside, agree a place like this will be very popular with the Euro backpacker set. If you’ve ever seen what some places which are considered acceptable as hostel accomodation in Europe or back in the day Hong Kong, this looks like a palace in comparison.
BTW. Having two lunges is very important also. Best multiple typo in an ad I ever read was – Specious apartment, Livining room has orginal shudders.
It went up in price, I remember seeing it listed at 18 a night! And that was only about a year ago. Talk about inflation!
>this place doesn’t meet the safety reqs for a more dense use.
ok, let’s postulate a Lubavitcher family with 10 kids buys this place. That’s OK from a legal viewpoint, yes, but is it ‘unsafe’? Less so than (I don’t the exact number) 10 young adults who are probably more capable of taking care of themselves?
The whole issue of safety is a slippery slope. Let’s not assume that this place is any less safe than your sprinklered and inspected house is.