Home libraries revisited: So many books, so much love

By Jennifer Laing | May 1, 2015 - 4:00PM

We adore home libraries so much, we're revisiting them once more. (Check out properties we found earlier this year that featured them.) For bookworms out there, now's a great time to apartment-hunt, given the selection of shelf-lined properties available on the market. And no surprise: To borrow the name of a local literary festival, New York is book country, after all.

Believe it or not, that’s not the living room of this oversized two-bedroom co-op at 870 United Nations Plaza (yours for $6.8 million). It’s a 718-square-foot private library.

This four-bedroom, two-bath duplex at 130 Jane Street for sale at $2.995 million is a book lover’s dream thanks to a quiet windowed office-library featuring a full wall of floor-to-ceiling built-ins. It’s up to the new owners to set up their own Dewey Decimal system.

Some entranceways are lined with closets or coat hooks, this one at 284 Lafayette (on sale for $4.995 million) boasts floor-to-ceiling bookcases that create a welcoming environment no ordinary foyer could ever match.

A sliding ladder makes reaching the volumes on the top shelf of this wall-to-wall bookcase a cinch. Given the library’s location right next to the gourmet kitchen in this $4.2 million Tribeca loft, we’d expect at least a bay or two devoted exclusively to cookbooks.

9 bookshelf walls you can live with

Private gardens that put the average backyard to shame

Outdoor kitchens that will make all your al fresco meals memorable

Dressing rooms big enough to live in (rest of the apartment included)

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