Do you consider yourself to be an urbanist? Validate your urban cred, and buy this North Side condo owned by The Urbanophile! The seller of this lovely Lakeview three-bedroom condo is of course Aaron Renn, author of the popular urban affairs blog The Urbanophile. Renn is packing up and moving to New York, and sad though we are to see him go, it's nice to get a look at his home. The modern, 3BD, 3BA unit is on the top floor of a four-story elevator building, and it has loads of open space, exposed brick, a couple of fireplaces, and a nice big terrace. The home is priced at $650,000. Yesterday, when we caught wind that he had listed the place, we got in touch with The Urbanophile and asked him to tell us how this home reflects his urbanist ethos.
"It be a bit difficult to separate my urbanist ethos from my personal tastes at times, particularly when it comes to picking a place to live. But I like my place to be like my city: unique, cool, and modern. I was struck by the space instantly on walking into it where you come in through an entry way, then when you get through it and look there's this massive open space. People are always kind of blown away by it. It reminded me of how you come into downtown from O'Hare and you come over that hill on Irving Park and the skyline appears. Since my building was built on 3 1/2 lots, my unit it much wider than a normal Chicago condo, which was great too. I don't think there are many spaces like this in the city. I didn't want to be a standard type condo."The place comes with two underground parking spots, but The Urbanophile of course values walkability and public transit options:"Of course I also put a premium on walkability and transit. I'm close to the Paulina L for getting downtown, and I live on Belmont so a 24 hour bus is right in front of my house. It's a quick ride west to the Blue Line to the airport when I want to do that. (I should tell you that despite being on Belmont, it's quiet in my unit since I'm so high up there's no direct sound path from the street). I can walk to almost anything. Taxis are on the street, etc. But you can still get easy street parking if you need it."What about the design?"And personally I like more modern architecture, so I wanted to go for a more modern or industrial type look, which I did."In a blog post, Renn also mentioned another perk: The place comes with a shopping cart. What's up with that??"As for the shopping cart, I suppose someone in the building sometime back thought it would be useful and decided to, shall we say, somehow acquire one. I can't tell you how awesome it is to be able to load groceries directly from the trunk into this cart, then wheel it up the elevator and into my kitchen to unload it."So there you have it. Thanks, Aaron! · Listing: 1740 W. Belmont Ave. #Pent [Dream Town]
· Chicago/OT: Buy My Condo! [The Urbanophile]
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