One of the 17 apartments in Villa Charlotte Brontë is for sale. It probably won’t last long. When Matthew Sedacca profiled the cliffside Bronx co-op named for the novelist, he found the building had a yearslong wait list. Which makes sense — it looks as though it was transported to Riverdale from the Amalfi Coast. (The sprawling grounds, set on a cliff’s edge, are connected by winding hedged paths, arches, and a well-manicured grotto.) Per Sedacca, “Triplex apartments with two decks sit seemingly in midair, accessible only by curlicue staircases.”
The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath duplex currently for sale has a nearly 400-square-foot roof deck overlooking the Hudson, double-height cathedral ceilings, a wood-burning fireplace, a bay window, and a Juliet balcony (also facing the river). The apartment itself is accessible only from a curlicue staircase.
This can be challenging, some residents say. The poet Richard Sime, who moved into Villa Charlotte Brontë in 2010, told Sedacca that “you have to go down 32 stairsteps and up 34 just to get in my front door. I had a knee replacement a few years ago, and before that, I had to pull myself up them. And I mean, Lord forbid I’m out the door and remember my cell phone is on the third floor of my apartment.”
