YOU PAY WHAT?!
Gal spends $1,300 in rent for glam apartment that’s the envy of NYC
The Internet is going wild for one woman’s impossibly cheap — and chic — apartment.
Harlem special education teacher Hattie Kolp rents a twobedroom pad on the Upper West Side for only $1,300 a month — a crazy deal in a city where two bedrooms are typically more than twice that price.
After Kolp posted videos on TikTok of her glamorous flat, comparisons between her and “Friends” character Monica Geller soon proliferated online. Played by Courteney Cox, Monica inherited her rent-controlled apartment from her grandmother.
There are plenty of New Yorkers with similarly enviable living situations: One million New Yorkers live in a rent-stabilized or rentcontrolled apartment, according to New York City’s 2020 housing supply report.
“I am extremely grateful for my situation,” Kolp, 29, told The Post. “It’s just a unique space, and you don’t see apartments like this anymore.”
Kolp grew up in the 1890s-constructed apartment with her parents, which is how she lucked into the deal. Rent stabilization is complicated, but it typically only applies to units built before 1974 in buildings with six or more apartments. Eligibility depends on when the tenant moved in and what rent they paid at that time.
Under rent stabilization, landlords can only increase rent a certain percent per year. The rate was set at 1.5 percent (or 2.5 percent for a two-year lease), but last summer the rate was set to zero until September 2021.
Kolp is both appreciative and committed. Since 2018, she has spent nights, weekends and “whenever I get a free moment” completing do-it-yourself projects and restoring the apartment to its original pre-WWI architectural style with a modern flair.
“It’s been like my therapy,” she said. “It has just allowed me to discover my passion for interior design and old homes.”
When her parents moved out in 2018, Kolp knocked down walls to uncover pocket doors, and she painted the whole apartment white to start with a blank slate. Then, she slowly started adding blues and greens.
“My biggest thing was that I started to realize the potential and uniqueness [of this apartment], so I really wanted to restore it and get it back to its intended condition,” said Kolp.
In the TikTok video that made her famous overnight, Kolp starts by showing off her blue-gray door with a peephole, which opens to an entryway with a spindly modern chandelier. She turns down a white hallway with stunning wall panel molding — most of which is original to the apartment, she said.
Area rugs partially cover hardwood floors, and candle sconces from her grandparents’ log cabin in Kentucky grace the hallways, along with gold-framed art.
“Some of it [the art] came from my mom, stuff she left me. Most of it — I get a lot of inexpensive things from online print shops as digital downloads, and then I also go thrifting and use Etsy and eBay,” she said. In some rooms, art collections have “vintage antique vibes” and others have a modern and minimal look, she said.
The apartment has its original fireplaces, which are no longer operational. She covered the tiles with contact paper since the original tiles were discolored and cracked. She filled one with candles and the other with fairy lights, and she showed off the white wood mantels.
Kolp’s blue bedroom has an original fireplace and a tasseled Justina Blakeney chandelier. The apartment has a butler’s pantry with a historic dumbwaiter (no, it doesn’t still work), and she has painted the original cabinetry green.
Meanwhile, Kolp transformed her childhood bedroom into a library with a green velvet couch and industrial white shelving.
“I just love all the historical details,” she said. “And the moldings, the fireplaces, the creaky floors.”