I always thought it would be cool to buy an old school and turn it into a house. My old elementary school would have been awesome (but it was gigantor - maybe more appropriate for apartments). I should have bought the building before they tore it down. There was a more human-house-scale school near my high school that would have been perfect. There is an old high school in my hometown which has been turned into apartments, but I never had an opportunity to live there. I'm not limited to schools, though - I really dig all kinds of architectural reuse, including a (now defunct) restaurant in Clermont in a former church.
When I was in grad school, I lived in an old National Guard Armory that was converted into apartments. I will scan in pictures of the place later, but the slide show will do for now. What I loved most about it were the windows. Floor-to-ceiling, with a palladium window at the top (second apartment - top floor). And the original gymnasium hardwood floors (first apartment - bottom floor). My first year of grad school, I lived in a 1/1 space on the main floor. It had incredibly tall ceilings, an elevated living room, the aforementioned hardwood, a nice kitchen. After we got married, we moved upstairs to a 1/1.5 loft apartment with two floors. The upstairs loft space was a gigantic bedroom with exposed rafters and ductwork. The windows were just incredible. To say nothing of the location - over the Wabash River from campus, right on the free bus loop, two blocks down from a bakery (swoon!), and a few more blocks from historic downtown Lafayette. And next door to a funeral home, actually. I've liked every place I've lived (more or less, and it should be noted that my parents still live in the first house they ever bought, so I haven't moved around much), but that was probably my favorite place ever.
Okay - here are some scans of the Armory apartment. The first (up there) is the exterior, obviously. The second (below) is the view of our kitchen, and you can see into the living room (and the windows!). The third is the upstairs loft space that we used as our bedroom.
That reminds me so much of a place we looked at once while we were visiting Columbus, Georgia. We weren't serious about renting it, but we took the tour anyway just for kicks--an old Textile Mill with huge windows overlooking the Chattahoochee River.
ReplyDeleteI tried to include a photo here, but no dice...Blogger doesn't allow images in comments. But if you Google "Johnston Mill Lofts", you'll find it.
Anyway, we--like you--thought the idea was way cool.
Super cool indeed! I wish I could see interior shots (more googling might yield some). Too bad Central FL doesn't have much of this kind of thing. Not that I'd want to live in an apartment again, but I just like the idea of it.
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