Back Bay condo comes up big
The owner of this sunny condo at 125 Beacon St. in the Back Bay — just a block from the Public Garden — sums the place up perfectly.
“It lives large,” said Karyn Pellow, “but it's not large.”
Anyone who's spent time in one-bedroom condos in this area — especially the few priced under a million dollars like this — knows they can sometimes feel cramped and cavernous. Not here.
Despite holding only about 865-square feet, this condo feels grand, thanks to its oversized living room that's 21 feet by 18 feet with 12-and-a-half-foot ceilings.
“I like to entertain ... and ... even though it's a condo, it's a beautiful entertaining space,” said Pellow, who said she's thrown several parties at the place that she and her husband renovated last year.
The work on the unit — whose construction dates back to the 1860s — took some effort, she said, because of the hasty treatment it got in earlier years. For example, remodeling the kitchen required a jackhammer to cut through the layers of flooring that were caked on top of each other over the decades, raising it inches above the rest of the home.
After working the floors, Pellow installed Carrara marble countertops, Harlan custom white cabinetry, high-end stainless steel Electrolux convection oven and dishwasher and a Blomberg fridge. In the bathroom, which also was renovated, she put in marble tiles on the floors and walls and added new lighting.
But Pellow, a preservationist by passion, said she wanted to leave the history of the home untouched.
“I am very much about old architecture, about maintaining what is there ... while adding modern elements to it,” she said.
So she kept the old cast-iron tub in the bathroom and the Art Deco-style, marble-surround fireplace in the living room, and added a leaded transom window to the kitchen to keep the home's character. She also put in moldings in the bedroom to match the ornate and heavy moldings and wainscoting in the living room.
She also installed a massive, gilded-iron hanging light shaped like a lantern in the living area.
“When they brought it in, they called it the birdcage,” she said, adding that it was so big, “the door had to come off.”
But the piece, made by Circa Lighting, works well, letting visitors appreciate its size and height without overwhelming the place.
To make the condo more livable, she also installed a washer and dryer inside.
For being on the second floor of the mid-rise building, the condo has decent views, looking down a historic public alleyway from the bedroom windows. The deck off the living room also looks down the alleyway, yet feels private and spacious — it can easily seat five adults.
Now that Pellow and her husband are moving out, she said she thinks the work they did will last a lifetime because they replaced the kitchen floor and used durable materials like marble.
“I hope that nobody renovates it for 40 years,” she said, “because the bones of the place should be timeless.”
Brigitte Petrocelli of Coldwell Banker is handling the sale of the condo unit No. 4, which is listed at $999,000. Her number is 617-803-5249.