Through jobs, marriages and children, one guy has managed to hold on to the same apartment in Red Hook.
When Patrick Seeley moved into a 1,200 square-foot loft in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 2003, he never expected the space would reflect his life so intricately, visually changing with each iteration or major milestone he experienced.
“I’ve built rooms, torn them down, rebuilt them again, and created different realities,” said Mr. Seeley, 46, a lighting designer for “Saturday Night Live.” “Every major life change I’ve had, I’ve been able to express in this apartment.”
Nor did he think he’d still inhabit the space 20-plus years later. But three engagements, two marriages, one divorce and three children later, he’s still residing in the apartment, in a building that used to be a luggage factory.
Back in 2003, Mr. Seeley, then 23 was living with his girlfriend in Park Slope and paying $1,000 a month for a first-floor, 400-square foot studio apartment. A Portland native, he moved to New York in 1997. For a short stint, he became a licensed real estate broker, and got a job at a now-closed real estate agency in New York.
One morning, he stumbled upon “an oddball listing that had no real description except an address and square footage, that the loft was on the fourth floor, and was $900 a month,” said Mr. Seeley, who went to view the space a day or so later with his girlfriend, and a friend who was looking for a place to live.
