The Centrale and 4730 Fieldston Road
In this episode of "Real listings, imagined lives", a mischief-making adolescent visits his family's suburban home in Fieldston before high-tailing it to their city apartment in the Centrale. The Fieldston property, located at 4730 Fieldston Road, is a landmarked Georgian Revival house with approximately 10,000 square feet of interior space sitting on a 1.3-acre lot. Designed by Julius Gregory in the late 1920s, the listing notes the home has only been owned by two families. The ten-bedroom, seven-bath compound is on the market for $4.475 million.
The city home is a 58th-floor tower residence at The Centrale in Midtown East. The full-floor spread covers 2,756 square feet and has four-bedrooms and four baths. There is also a small terrace off the living and dining room. The home is listed for $10,500,000. Shared amenities in the building include a porte-cochere, a private dining room, club lounge, conference room, and wellness suite with Wright-Fit-designed fitness center, 75-foot lap pool, sauna/steam room, and spa treatment rooms.
The city home is a 58th-floor tower residence at The Centrale in Midtown East. The full-floor spread covers 2,756 square feet and has four-bedrooms and four baths. There is also a small terrace off the living and dining room. The home is listed for $10,500,000. Shared amenities in the building include a porte-cochere, a private dining room, club lounge, conference room, and wellness suite with Wright-Fit-designed fitness center, 75-foot lap pool, sauna/steam room, and spa treatment rooms.
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In this series "Real listings, imagined lives," we take inspiration from real-life listings and overlay an imagined story. The traditional real estate listing descriptions are fictionalized to add fascination and a New York edge. The series envisions residents, neighborhoods, culture, and more around NYC homes for sale. New Yorkers are anything but ordinary, and so their home descriptions should not be either. So our stories take creative license and New York chutzpah to reveal the most interesting aspects of listings as we imagine the lives lived in these amazing homes and neighborhoods.
Holden Caulfield; A Catcher in the Rye (Little, Brown and Company)
My parents are going to kill me. I keep telling them I am Holden Caufield reincarnated but they are not amused. Someday I’ll write about my boarding school adventures and show them! How original, eh? Ha.
4730 Fieldston Road, Fieldston | 6+ beds, 6+ baths, $4,475,000 (Compass)
So... they heard I was suspended from school and they told me to come to the Riverdale house and wait for them but I’m just not feeling it.
4730 Fieldston Road
The house sits on 1.3 acres
Side terrace
I head to the side door to sneak inside.
Family room
I’m still greeted by Jeeves, our butler. Ugh, I know!!! Was this man born to be a butler or what?
Living room
He greets me says they’ve missed me (they = our staff). What a good liar he is.
Foyer
Originally, this was my grandmother’s house and now it’s my mom’s. My dear old mom has never added her “touch” to the house because, well, she’s never here. She’d rather be off trekking in Tanzania or mixing it up in Mumbai.
Eat-in kitchen
I’ve had tons of fun in this house over the years but I’m always slightly embarrassed when a nosy friend decides it’s time to explore every square inch of its 10,000 square feet and, inevitably, discovers my hopscotch room. I think that’s why they call me hoppy. Might have something to do with my beer consumption though!?
This house isn’t nearly as much fun alone. I can’t sit here and wait for my parents to come home and see what creative torture they think up for me this time. And since it’s so damn cold and the pool is closed and I have no one to play tennis with, I’m headed to the city.
The Centrale (Rendering via Douglas Elliman)
“Jeeves! Tell the driver to pull the car around in 10. I’m headed to the Centrale.”
The Centrale's entryway and driveway
We pull up to the porte-cochere and I can already breathe so much easier.
The Centrale lobby
My shoes are a little wet from the rain outside so I skate across the lobby. The custodian shakes his head in frustration. I try a triple axel just for him. I wipe out, get up and bow.
I walked into the apartment and scream, “Honey, I’m home!”
The views from our place still get me every time.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.” True dat! Just look at that view.
Ooh, I actually know this one! It's the General Electric building. Dad always gushes about its, umm, how does it go? "Energetic Art Deco," that's it. I'll give it to him, it's pretty groovy (again, another Dad term, but it makes me sound like an old hippie, which is also pretty groovy).
I throw my bag onto the couch in my parents’ room and run and jump on their bed. They won’t be here for a while.
I chill on their whatever-ridiculous-thread-count sheets (like, why is this a thing? Is someone actually counting threads in a bed sheet?) and look out to the office towers. Mom keeps droning on about me getting an internship at a finance firm, but I've gotta get a rec letter from someone, polish up my resume... why am I even thinking about this nonsense right now?
View east towards Queens and the East River
I turn left toward Queens... That's still Queens, right? When did all them skyscrapers go up? Wasn't it all, like, car tire shops just yesterday? At least now Spider-Man will have somewhere to swing around in his own hood.
Master bath
I think about filling their tub with a jug of bubble bath but decide I’m much too energized for that.
I grab a cigar from my father’s collection- who knows how much this thing is worth.
Secondary bedroom
I take one and hide it in my room. Bored. I decide I'm gonna go romp around the building.
The Centrale's club room
I head to the building's Club Room to sit in front of the eternally roaring fire.
Then I wander down to the pool and try to break my floating record.
I look up at all the scrubs running on the treadmills above. “Aren’t you sick of trying to catch up?” I scream to them but they pay me no attention through the glass.
Common terrace
When I’m raisin-y enough from being oversaturated, I stomp down the hallway, head to the lounge and streak through the common terraces.
As I ride the elevator back to the apartment, I contemplate going out on the town but gawd, Midtown is sooooo boring. I could just head straight downtown and go to some Holden-esque jazz club with my old gal Sally but I’d have to get by her mortifying gatekeeper parents. Yuck. And she wants to marry me… puh-lease! Can't tie me down.
I stride through the front door, still dripping pool water everywhere and as I head to the kitchen bump straight into my father. He looks shocked but, ultimately, not surprised. He smirks and hands me a brochure telling me to pack my bags, we’re headed to military school immediately. When will they ever learn?
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Contributing Writer
Michelle Sinclair Colman
Michelle writes children's books and also writes articles about architecture, design and real estate. Those two passions came together in Michelle's first children's book, "Urban Babies Wear Black." Michelle has a Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Minnesota and a Master's degree in the Cities Program from the London School of Economics.
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