Own the LifeEdited Apartment

You read it right: we are selling the LifeEdited prototype apartment (internally dubbed LE1). The 420 sq ft wonder was the winner of the AIA NY Honor Award as well as the Architizer A+ Award for Small Living. It has been featured in the NY Times (twice), CNN, ABC World and local news, the Today Show, the New Yorker, NPR, Wired UK, Dwell, Gizmodo, Daily Mail UK and many, many others. It is probably the only apartment with its own TED talk. It can be yours for $995K.

We understand this is a lot of money, so before you say anything, let us explain why it cost so much:

Think of the apartment as a concept car. We were principally interested in gathering information. Our aim was and is to take that information and apply it to replicable models for future cost-effective real estate projects. Few concessions were made in terms of its construction. We wanted to push the limits of what was possible in the small footprint at our disposal. Its construction was the product of an army of (costly) designers, architects, builders and various other folks. Getting everything to work involved many (costly) hiccups and innumerable re-toolings. Every material and product you see were the best we could find. There are even unseen features like an air barrier and heat recovery ventilator that give the space near Passive House levels of insulation. The apartment’s small size belies its expense.
This is not just any apartment. It’s a 420 sq ft apartment with the functionality of an apartment twice its size. It’s a studio that has a home office, can comfortably accommodate two overnight guests (with privacy), has a projection screen home theater, has 426 cubic feet of storage and can seat 12 for dinner. How many studio apartments do you know that can achieve such feats?
Soho is not just any neighborhood. Consider that the average per square foot price of a home in Soho is $1600–and this not for a fully furnished home like the LifeEdited Apartment. 840 x $1600 is $1.34M. These numbers might sound absurd to non-New Yorkers, but there they are. Frankly, there aren’t any real comparables. The closest we found was a studio in a nearby Trump building. It cost the same amount, had a $2400 monthly maintenance, no kitchen and could not be occupied more than 120 days/year.

We at LifeEdited are truly going to miss our little apartment. Lots of sweat and toil and care were put into its conception and construction (the sweat smell has been since removed). But our loss is offset by our excitement for future projects, which LE1 will help propel forward. It is our hope that soon we can create cost-effective compact, efficient housing for everyone. LE1 was the first step.

If you are interested in purchasing LE1, visit Corcoran’s website for full details.

BTW, Graham’s next apartment, LE2, will be 350 sq ft. We’ll keep you posted on his move.