Joyce Gasiorowski’s new home needed to have space for her antique buffet and her mother’s secretary from 1940. She chose a backdrop of brick walls, 12-foot-high ceilings, and exposed columns and ductwork at The Lofts in Franklin Square, apartments built into the former O.M. Edwards factory.
The space is advertised as “Soho-styled” lofts. Gasiorowski knew that traditional furnishings can blend into modern settings.
“When I looked at this apartment, I just visualized all my furnishings in here,” she said.
The dining room set she bought just before Christmas “fits better here than in my house.”
Gasiorowski retired from the Syracuse City School District and decided to sell her home, on the North Side. She lived in the house for 38 years and did extensive renovations. But a house built in the mid-1940s can take both time and money to maintain. And Gasiorowski was done with that.
“I got rid of the shovels, rakes and the lawn mower,” she said.
Gasiorowski lost the yard work, but she gained what is perhaps the ultimate in schlep-free laundry: a stackable washer and dryer inside the master closet.
The apartment’s open space reminds Gasiorowski of “a ranch house. It just flows.”
“When I saw this and knew it was big enough to have family and friends over to entertain, I said, ‘This it it,’’’ Gasiorowski said. “I had everybody here for Easter, and it was very nice. … We were all together in one area.”
In the center of the room is the kitchen. The windows in the living room area face Plum Street. The dining room is on the other side of the kitchen. The apartment is an end unit, so Gasiorowski traded windows in the dining room for the additional quiet of an unshared wall.
“It’s very, very quiet here. You don’t hear anybody.”
The two-bedroom, two-bath apartment also has maple floors, large steel-sash windows, four closets and a whirlpool tub in the master bath — the only one in the 90-apartment building.
Gasiorowski wasn’t comfortable talking about money, but she said to check the website of Sutton Real Estate Co., which manages the apartments. Two-bedroom, two-bathroom units start at $1,300 a month, the website said.
Freedom of Espresso is on the ground floor of The Lofts at Franklin Square, and a park with a fountain is just across Solar Street. Both are great places to entertain her 2½-year-old granddaughter, she said. The park, the tree-lined streets and the Creekwalk draw visitors to Franklin Square, she said.
“There’s a wedding down here every weekend. Proms, too. Especially when the trees are in bloom.”
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Joyce Gasiorowski has discovered that exposed beams and duct work, both ubiquitous in downtown living spaces, can blend with traditional furniture.
Photo by Gloria Wright | Syracuse New Times
Joyce Gasiorowski has disovered that her family antiques fit into the decor of a downtown loft space.
Photo by Gloria Wright | Syracuse New Times
The kitchen in Joyce Gasiorowski’s loft in Franklin Square has cherry cabinets.
Photo by Gloria Wright | Syracuse New Times
