8 REMB THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2020The foyer of Libby Fearnley’s one-bedroom
apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, holds
three scooters, three children’s bikes, a
large bookshelf, a shoe-storage cabinet, a
granny cart and a closet filled with linens, a
sewing machine, art supplies, Christmas
decorations, luggage, photos and a printer.
The entry’s robust storage capacity is a tes-
tament to the graciousness of prewar lay-
outs.
But if it were up to Ms. Fearnley, 41, a
writer, she would reallocate some of that
real estate to other parts of the 550-square-
foot apartment, which she shares with her
husband, Stephen, 54, a college professor,
and their three sons: Bryce, 10; Ellis, 9; and
Evren, 3. They also have a three-legged cat,
Wonder.
“If there is one thing I would add, it would
be another bathroom,” said Ms. Fearnley,
who moved into the apartment in 2004
when she was single.
But living well in New York often means
making peace, and the best life possible, in
the space you have. Even — or, perhaps, es-
pecially — at times like this, when stay-at-
home orders have made so many of us
acutely aware of the limitations of our
apartments.
For Ms. Fearnley, keeping the apartment,
which rents for less than $2,000 a month
and is a block from Prospect Park, was al-
ways worth trade-offs like forgoing an extra
bedroom. But even she admits that two
adults and three children working and tak-
ing classes in the apartment, as opposed to
just living there, has been a bit much.
“Living in such tight quarters, we gener-
ally do spend a lot of time outside the apart-
ment,” she said. “But now I’m trying to work
from one side of the living room, my hus-
band is trying to teach, giving lectures from
the other side, and for the first month or so
we only had one device for the two older
boys to work on that we’d borrowed from
their school.”
The living room is also the couple’s bed-
room — the sofa converts into a bed — and
serves as the dining room and piano-prac-
tice room, with the different areas demar-
cated by furniture and rugs.
The bedroom belongs to the boys. Last
August, when Evren was old enough to
graduate from his crib to a bed, the Fearn-
leys replaced their standard bunk bed with
a triple-high one and installed a double-
desk setup with mounted shelving on the
opposite wall, which proved helpful when
schools closed in March.
She found the apartment after stopping
in at a real estate office in Brooklyn, where
an agent gave her keys to the apartment
and sent her on her own to check it out. She
really liked it and the building, but it was
over her $1,300 budget.
She told the agent she would love to take
it if the price dropped, and was surprised
when she got a call the next day: The land-
lord was willing to rent it to her for what the
departing tenant had paid — several hun-
dred dollars less than it was listed for — as
long as renovations didn’t have to be done.
The apartment had an older kitchen but
was in good shape.
“I didn’t even know it was a block from
Prospect Park,” she said. “When I first
moved here, it felt like I was on vacation: I
could see the trees and the sky.”
When Mr. Fearnley joined her a few years
later, she cleared out a closet for him as a
Valentine’s Day gift, so it would feel like his
space, too.
And then, of course, the space “evolved
with each kid,” she said. “We make sacri-
fices, but it’s not anything that matters.”
Most of the discomfort she has had to deal
with, she added, is other people’s. “They’re
like: ‘Your poor kids. You can’t raise three
boys in there.’ ”
They did briefly consider the suburbs,
but her husband, an organic chemistry pro-
fessor at the CUNY Graduate Center and
York College, in Jamaica, Queens, prefers
an easier commute. More important, they
realized they didn’t want to move.
They don’t even want to leave the 36-unit
building, although Ms. Fearnley has, to no
avail, tried to get a larger apartment there.
“My neighbors have become family,” she
said. “We look after each other’s pets, bor-
row milk, watch kids if someone has to go to
the hospital in the middle of the night.”
And the affordable rent allows the family
to travel, spending a month every summer
visiting Mr. Fearnley’s family in England.
That trip won’t happen this year, but they
did stay at her parents’ empty house in
Pennsylvania — the coronavirus had tem-
porarily stranded them in Florida — for
most of April. Having a washer and dryer
there at their disposal — their own building
doesn’t have laundry facilities — was very
nice, Ms. Fearnley admitted, as was being
able to set up semi-permanent work spaces,
but they were all happy to return to the city.
Coming back, they were delighted to find
that part of Prospect Park West had been
closed to cars. “I’ve been able to send the
kids out on their bikes,” she said. “Prospect
Park has been our haven.”
But like so many New Yorkers, she finds
herself yearning for private outdoor space.
“I’ve been desperate to get out onto the
fire escape,” Ms. Fearnley said. “But there’s
an old-school grate on the window.”RENTERS
A Brooklyn One-Bedroom That Accommodates Five
By KIM VELSEYThe Fearnleys, who share a 550-square-foot one-bedroom, briefly considered the suburbs but
realized they didn’t want to leave New York. They make do by making the most of their space.PHOTOGRAPHS BY LIBBY FEARNLEYKnow a renter with an interesting story?
Email: [email protected].
NamesLibby Fearnley, 41,
and Stephen Fearnley, 54LocationPark Slope,
BrooklynRentLess than $2,000Their children Bryce, 10;
Ellis, 9; and Evren, 3OccupationMs. Fearnley,
previously a designer, is now
a sustainable-fashion instruc-
tor and writer; Mr. Fearnley is
a professor of organic chem-
istry at the CUNY Graduate
Center and York College in
Jamaica, Queens.House rulesIn their pre-
pandemic mornings, getting
everyone out of the apart-
ment on time required that
those who were ready stand
by the door and read, so as
not to get in the way of those
still trying to get ready. The
children go to bed at 8 p.m.
and are expected to remain
quietly in their room, except
for trips to the bathroom,
until 7:30 a.m.Keeping clutter to a
minimum“It’s sort of a
something-comes-in-some-
thing-goes-out policy,” Ms.
Fearnley said. “If there’s no
more room on the bookshelf,
cull some books. No more
room in the drawers? Some-
thing has to go.”$1.1 Million
WHAT YOU GET
WHAT A 1907 waterside bungalow
with two bedrooms and two and a
half bathrooms on a 0.63-acre lot
HOW MUCH $1.125 million
SIZE 1,810 square feet
PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $622
SETTING This house is in the
Eagledale neighborhood, with
filtered views of Eagle Harbor and
its marina. The ferry terminal
(along with restaurants, a winery,
a museum and a waterfront park)
is a 10-minute car ride away, and
the ferry ride to Seattle is 35
minutes. The property has 180
feet of frontage on Whiskey Creek.
INDOORS The combined efforts of
the current and previous owners
have yielded a new concrete
foundation and basement; a new
septic system, drain field and
plumbing; a refinished front door
and solid white-oak floors; a
redone kitchen and master bath-
room; fresh paint; and new land-
scaping. The house also has a
renovated first-floor mudroom
with a washer and dryer.
OUTDOOR SPACE The fenced back-
yard has raised garden beds, a
pergola, the remains of a brick
chimney, planted borders, flower-
ing trees and a one-car garage.
Wooden steps lead to a waterfront
dock.TAXES $4,360 (2019, based on a
tax assessment of $452,220)
CONTACT Leah Applewhite, Re-
alogics Sotheby’s International
Realty, 206-387-0439;
sothebysrealty.comPHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL SIEDLBainbridge Island, Wash.
WHAT A single-story 1942 con-
crete house with two bedrooms
and two bathrooms, on an 8,319-
square-foot lot
HOW MUCH $1.125 millionSIZE 2,080 square feet
PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $541
SETTING This house is in Sherman
Oaks, a neighborhood in the San
Fernando Valley, 16 miles north-
west of downtown Los Angeles. In
the 1980s, an architecture firm
then known as Appleton & Associ-
ates reconfigured and enlarged it
to create a modern sanctuary with
two plant-filled glass atriums and
elaborately landscaped grounds.
INDOORS The front door opens to a
dining area with a fireplace. Glass
doors lead to an outdoor spacethat runs behind the hedge-
covered front wall. This area flows
past the kitchen into a living room
that has a gas fireplace on one
side and a library niche on the
other. The master suite includes a
bedroom, a gas fireplace flanked
by two sliding-glass doors that
offer access to an outdoor court-
yard and an en suite bathroom.
The guest bedroom is at the front
of the house.
OUTDOOR SPACE The courtyard has
a big, leafy tree standing among
ferns. It connects through a gate
to a walled garden. Parking is in
an attached one-car garage.
TAXES $14,063 (estimated)
CONTACT Evie Del Castillo or Rob
Maynard, Keller Williams Realty
World Media, 424-333-1386;
homesandland.comPHOTOGRAPHS BY 360LISTING PHOTOGRAPHYLos Angeles
WHAT A late-18th-century center-
hall farmhouse with three bed-
rooms and three bathrooms, two
outbuildings, a pond and a swim-
ming pool, on an 85.26-acre lotHOW MUCH $1.1 million
SIZE 3,300 square feet
PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT $333
SETTING This property in the East
Dummerston neighborhood was a
working farm until the 1940s,
when it was bought for use as a
summer home. The current own-
ers built an addition in 2005 that
holds the master suite. They also
built a pool, stone pool house and
a structure that contains a room
for entertaining and a potting
shed. The home is in southern
Vermont, about 10 miles north of
Brattleboro.INDOORS Among the many im-
provements are updated heating
and central cooling systems and a
new cedar-shake roof. Original
features include wide-board
floors, wall paneling and ceiling
beams, such as you’ll find in the
34-foot-long living room, which
also has a brick fireplace that has
been converted to gas.OUTDOOR SPACE The property
includes woods, meadows, trails,
stone walls, gardens and a cherry
orchard. The pool house near the
in-ground pool was built by a local
stonemason.
TAXES $16,100CONTACT Robert Doyle, Berkley &
Veller Greenwood Country Real-
tors, 802-258-1101;
listings.berkleyveller.comROBERT DOYLEDummerston, Vt.
CLAUDIA D’ALESSANDROJULIE LASKY