Unless you have an incredibly intimate close circle of friends, asking someone to grab more ice from the kitchen during a dinner party might come with some risk at this Nob Hill apartment.
I came to a comfortable, grounding realization last year that I’m (most likely) leaving my rent-controlled studio apartment on the base of Nob Hill in a body bag. Or will simply litter the floor with black carbon as my flesh disintegrates into nothing but ash? But I’m by no means immune to scrolling through Zillow or Craigslist, surveying the current rental landscape, and finding gratitude for my affordable 300-square-foot domicile.
On more than one occasion, such sleuthing has unearthed rare apartments — ones with rich histories and awe-inspiring views — for rent and other, say, less desirable accommodations set inside a space not much larger than a parking spot. A common quirk of the latter category was apartments that had showers within arm’s reach of a refrigerator. But of those findings, none had enclosed a kitchen inside a bathroom.
That all changed this week when an efficiency studio was posted for rent in Nob Hill on Craigslist.
The apartment is inside a gorgeous rent-controlled building at 1369 Hyde Street. (While reviews of the building largely slam RentSFNow, a residential branch of the property management giant Veritas, residents appreciate the decor and history of the building.) Keystone Apartments — the building’s name — was the first luxury residential property built after the 1906 earthquake. It’s evolved countless times over the decades and was once operated as a high-end hotel. Some of the layouts still reflect that past; unit number 66A is proof of just that.
Priced at just under $2,000, the 320-square-foot studio apartment is priced at the current market average for the neighborhood. In the luxury space, it actually sits hundreds less a month than other similarly sized units. But yes, there’s a catch.
Unlike any other apartment I’ve come across in recent memory, I can’t remember a single one where the bathroom and kitchen were actually combined. Not part of a larger open floor plan — the bathroom and kitchen each effect sitting inside a giant room. Rather, they’re individually merged and put behind a separating door from the main space.
Pictures of the unit show the shower within arm’s reach of a two-burner electric stove top. The toilet is less than five feet from a mini fridge and countertop where you’d prepare food. One could argue an entirely open floor plan that doesn’t separate the bathroom and kitchen is a means to an end for a sub-200-square-foot space. Strange and a conversational ice breaker, but comprehensible. But for a space this size, baffling.
Moreover: having a door that combines the two inside a small space (with no windows or means of air circulation) seems like a health hazard. Alas, such spaces aren’t illegal … even in new construction.
