Boston's South End penthouse has extraordinary details

The locust trees on Holyoke Street are golden yellow, and the high stoop townhouses on this street seem to glow in the autumn light. One of the prettiest houses on the street is located at 15 Holyoke St.

Its original walnut doors have been carefully restored.

“Exterior doors were always done in walnut because it doesn’t fade,” says John Neale of Sprogis & Neal Real Estate.

“Modern stuff can be replaced, but original woodwork and doors, you can’t get them back once they’re gone.”

Neale is something of a South End historian, having lived in the neighborhood for 31 years. “The houses on Holyoke on this side of Columbus Avenue tend to have a different level of finish in them,” he explains.

“You’ll see fancier staircases, newel posts, crown molding. These were among the last houses built in the South End before the panic of 1873,” explains Neale. “These are wider, too, 21 feet.”

The duplex penthouse in this building has all that architectural detail and more.

The open kitchen boasts high-end appliances and a long stone center island that can serve as a breakfast bar.

Its current homeowners preserved plenty of original detail in the renovation and added a knockout kitchen and bathrooms, too. Neale’s business partner Brad Sprogis has listed this home at $1.395 million.

Unit 3 begins on the building’s second floor. The first surprise is that you enter on the bedroom level. “The layout isn’t conventional,” says Neale, “But I think they got it.”

The master bedroom is impeccable. The floors are the original spruce, grown in the Carolinas, and the curved sash windows in the bow have been rebuilt, so they are authentic and work nicely.

The crown moldings have been restored, and a glass five-arm chandelier hangs from a rosette on the ceiling.

“It looks like Murano glass,” says Neale.

A walk-through closet has the original storage built-ins still there, in amazing condition. “They didn’t have the heart to rip them out,” Neale says.

The master bedroom suite has a large niche, which contains the generous-sized bed, and two large walk-in closets.

There is also a walk-in closet in the room, spacious and well organized.

The bed resides in its own alcove, marked by an elegant archway. An accent wall behind the headboard is painted an ethereal sky blue. The homeowners can lie in bed and gaze out over the trees.

The home’s second bedroom is as attractive as the master. Its walls are painted the softest gray-green imaginable.

The decorative fireplace boasts its original marble mantel, and the floors are original here as well. “Old pine has fewer knots than modern wood,” observes Neale.

An en suite marble bath is also accessible from the hall, so it serves both bedrooms. The deep soaking tub has a marble surround.

The en suite bath of the second bedroom has a deep soaking tub and access from the hall.

The contemporary toilet and porcelain sink are made by Duravit, a company that has been manufacturing bathroom fixtures for nearly 200 years. The faucet is a top-of-the-line Hans Grohe.

A wainscoted stairway ascends to the unit’s top floor. “It’s unusual for the wainscoting to go up to this level,” Neale explains. The banister curves slightly. It too appears to be original.

The upper level is large and open with a high-end kitchen on the left as you come up the stairs. It is very bright up here, with dark-stained spruce floors grounding the space.

The counter, including a long center island/breakfast bar is made of diorite, which is a hard stone-like granite, only paler, with a linear grain.

The custom Italian light wood cabinets are made of straight sawn white oak.

There is abundant storage, including cabinets with glass doors placed above the deep stainless steel sink.

The appliances are highest quality, with a Miele Incognito dishwasher (“The quietest one you can buy,” Neale says); a Sub-Zero hidden behind a cabinetry; Bosch double ovens; a gas cooktop with a Miele vent fan and a Sub-Zero wine refrigerator with two temperature zones.

The penthouse duplex  has two bedrooms, a roof deck and two tandem parking spaces.

At the front of the room, beside the bow, is an elegant living room/media room. In the corner is a modernist fireplace with a gas log. The hearth and surround are black slate. “A lot of hearths are made of this,” Neale says. “It shows some real taste in the way things were done.”

At the far end of the room is a built-in with bookshelves and a flat screen TV. “What’s clever is that they built this out so far you don’t realize that they can cover the TV,” Neal points out.

A full tiled bath completes this level. The limestone tiles on the floor are large while the tiles in the walk-in shower are tiny. “Those big pieces, you can’t cut them enough to pitch them. You have to go to a smaller scale tile,” explains Neale. To the right of the shower is a closet holding a stacked Whirlpool washer and dryer.

There is one more staircase, going up to a private mahogany roof deck with a view of church steeples and skyscrapers through the trees. “It’s a little vignette of downtown as well as the Pru and the Hancock Tower. They kind of rule the view here,” Neale says.

DETAILS

Address: 15 Holyoke St., No. 3, South End

BR/BA: Two bedrooms; two baths

Size: 1,590 square feet

Age: Circa 1870; 1998; 2004             

Price: $1.395 million

Taxes: $8,767 (FY 2011 with residential exemption)

Condo fee: $281 per month (includes heat and hot water)        

Features of building: Restored Victorian townhouse with three condos on a tree-lined side street in the South End, central air conditioning.

Features of unit: Private, beautifully renovated duplex penthouse with architectural details; beautifully restored bedrooms with bow windows, crown moldings, carved marble fireplace and many built-ins; open chef’s kitchen and living area with gas fireplace and built-in flat screen TV; private roof deck and laundry in unit; two tandem parking spaces.

Close by: South End specialty shops, restaurants and cultural attractions; easy access to MBTA Orange Line, commuter rail and Amtrak at Back Bay station, a Routes 93 and 90. 

Contact: Brad Sprogis and John Neale, Sprogis & Neale, 679 Tremont St., Boston, MA 02118. Phone: 617-262-1504.

Website: www.sprogisneale.com

An open house will be held at this property Sunday, Oct. 23, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.