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I 4C The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 22, 2008

.Wednesday, October 22; 2008 - The Michigan Da

The churchon Church
1131 Church Street
Price tag - $2,900 a month
Walk to the end of Church Street, away be seen as assets
from the debauchery of Back Room and room, at the top of
Rick's and you will happen upon a reno. ing up into the stee
vated church, complete with -bright red has two windows
doors, a large bay window and a steeple. great pick-up line.
From its little-white-church facade to and floor is huge,
a nicely renovated interior, this three- three people. But
apartment house is certainly not typical with multiple peon
student housing With beautiful hard- good pick-up line,
wood floors, large windows, a second between twin bed
floor balcony and 25-foot ceilings, it is Markley triple, at
the kind of house you would dream about large interior win
buying when you're 40 rather than rent the living room.
at 21. Owned by QR 1M
The most notable space is apartment comes furnished
101, the four-bedroom unit in the front couches, a brand r
that contains the steeple. Featuring a a refrigerator, anc
comfortable living space, the apartment rooms. Tenants pa
has two unusual bedrooms that could

Eclectic meets
historic
205 North Division
Street
Price tag - $1,995 to
$4,395 a month
The Alonzo Palmer House has had several
residents since 1850, when it was purchased
and expanded by Alonzo Palmer, a Univer-
sity School of Medicine faculty member. The
thing that sets this historic house apart from
others in the neighborhood isthat the interior
has had just as many different looks.
From the attic apartment with a wood
A-frame ceiling and built in bar to the reno-.
vated carriage house with exposed brick'
Palmer House's four apartments each have 4
unique aesthetic.
At the front of the house, apartment two's
expansive countryside mural winds up th
wall into a bedroom. Francis Clark, the presi4
dent of Wilson White Management, whic
leases the house, said the mural represent
the original Palmer family's struggle to leavq
their old home and assimilate into a new
country.
The Palmer House is one of the few build
ings in Ann Arbor in which even the interior
is has been historically preserved because o:
its apartment 2 mural.
To accompany this central masterpiece,
walls and vaulted ceilings are accented with
impressive wood molding and a brown, beige
and cream colortheme. The apartment's win-
dows are hung with long curtains and differ-
ent window treatments,likeonefrontwindow
that's dressed in rustic evergreen and gold
curtains with a brass-colored crown.
The brickwork in the neighboring four-
person carriage house adds to its warm, old-
fashioned feeling. Thick brick tiles line the
floor of the kitchen, a theme continued along
the walls of the second and third stories.
Beautiful tall white windows let in a stream
of light on the second floor landing's polished
wood floor.
-KARA MORRIS

Keeping up
with the Jones
727 Oakland Avenue
3 Price tag - $3,950 a
month
On the corner of Hill Street and Oak-
land Avenue, on the edge of the "student
ghetto,"is a house that would fit perfectly
in a yuppie suburb: fresh paint and siding,
a porch swing, a lawn without scattered
solo cups and cigarette butts.
That's the image the owners - Jones
Properties - is trying to cultivate: one of
.a home rather than a house.
One such home is at 727 Oakland, a
three-story house that contains two
apartments. Renovated last summer, this
house comes with some exceptional ame-
nities like a flat-screen TV and a built in
stereo system with speakers attached to
the walls.
Walking into the five-bedroom apart-
ment on the first floor is like stepping into
an idyllic Midwestern kitchen - a color
scheme that matches the walls, counter
tops, appliances and cupboards.
When owner Dan Jones renovated the

From racquetball to bachelor pad
110 West Liberty Street
Price tag - $275,152 for a three-bedroom unit

house himself, he added a second full bath-
room, air conditioning, HD cable service
and a stereo system in the living room.
"Wethinkthatthere arealot of proper-
ties available to students where landlords
are charging a premium fee without pre-
mium services," Jones Properties employ-
ee Joe Burgess said. "Rent is going up but
quality is going down."
Engineering junior Matt Staton, who
lives in 727 Oakland house, said he appre-
ciatesthe company'sextraeffortsto please
tenants.
"The house feels brand new," he said.
-EMILYBARTON

The brick building at 101 West Liberty has
come a long way from the days when it was
the Ann Arbor YMCA.
Converted to commercial and residen-
tial space in 1998, it now houses a Starbucks,
the Black Pearl Martini lounge and luxury
condominiums that some well-off Univer-
sity students choose over traditional student
neighborhoods.
Looking to make a long-term investment,
LSA junior Will Stone purchased a loft on the
third story last January. Now he shares the
apartment with his cat, Boss, and two friends
whom he charges $600 a month each for the
two spare bedrooms.
The apartment's 24-foot ceiling and pale
parquet floors are mementos of the space's
former life as a racquetball court. A poplar
staircase, second-floor landing and 10-foot
vertical windows give the 1,186 sq. foot apart-
ment an airy and urban appeal.

In a few months, Stone will have complet-
ed an extensive remodeling of the bathroom
adjacent to the master bedroom upstairs. He
plans to eliminate the upstairs landing to
extend the bathroom, installing an oversize
shower and replacing the landing's half wall
that looks down to the living room with a win-
dow to preserve a sense of openness.
"I decided that privacy is probably an issue
for a bathroom," Stone said, gazing through
the holes in the unfinished wall. "So there's
gonna be a switch when you walk into the
bathroom that's going to switch (the glass)
from transparent to opaque."
The best feature of the loft, Stone said, is its
location off of Main Street, which feels more
like an urban center than a college town, is
only a 10-minute walk from campus.
"You just walk outside and anything you
want is right there," he said.
- SARA LYNNE THELEN