A classic six is a pre-war apartment with six main rooms including a master bedroom, a second bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, a dining room and a smaller’s maid’s bedroom.
Classic 6 apartments are relatively rare, and can be found mostly in upper Manhattan neighborhoods like the Upper East Side or the Upper West Side.
What a true classic 6 apartment looks like
Below is a floor plan for a 1,750 square feet classic 6 apartment in a condo building located on Park Avenue between East 95th and East 96th Street in the prestigious Carnegie Hill neighborhood in Manhattan.
As you can see, this well thought out layout features a master bedroom with an ensuite master bathroom, a spacious second bedroom with adjacent access via the hallway to a second bathroom, a living room, a dining room adjacent to a separate kitchen room, followed lastly by the maid’s room at the far end.
This exceptional floorplan allows for maximum privacy as not only do none of the sleeping quarters share walls, but the maid’s room is farthest away from the master and second bedrooms, yet next to the kitchen.
For context, this lovely apartment was an estate sale in need of a gut renovation, and was sold by one of our partner brokerages in early March of 2019 for $2,000,000. The original listing price chosen by the owner was $2,150,000, meaning only a 7% discount which is quite a feat in a buyer’s market.
When an apartment is stretching to be counted as a classic 6
Next up, we have an example of a 1,100 square foot classic 6 apartment located in a co-op building in Morningside Heights.
Keep in mind that in this example, the sellers have marketed their apartment as a classic six, but it’s certainly a bit of a stretch as most classic 6 apartments have at least 2 full bathrooms and often 3 bathrooms, whereas this one only has one and a half baths.
Furthermore, in a true classic 6 configuration, the living room is a completely separate room from the formal dining room. In this example however, the living room and dining room is connected without a dividing wall.
For context, this still lovely apartment was sold by one of our partner brokerages for $1,420,000 in mid-April of 2018, above its asking price of $1,395,000. Quite impressive for a bear market in NYC real estate!
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Classic six apartments are popular because of their many classic, pre-war features not commonly found in newer buildings today.
Classic 6 apartments are typically located in older, sturdier buildings with “good bones,” i.e. thicker walls, stone or brick construction, solid wood doors, original moldings and cornices, real fireplaces, oak floors, high ceilings and bigger rooms.
Classic 6 apartments are large
An important feature of true classic six apartments is that they’re large. The 1,750 square foot classic six apartment located on Park Avenue that we showed above is a great example of how big a true classic 6 apartment should be.
Classic six apartments are usually larger than 1,500 square feet and smaller than 2,000 square feet, though larger and smaller examples do exist. Apartments this large that haven’t been combined or that aren’t priced extravagantly in a new construction building are certainly hard to find in New York City.
The maid’s room can be a 3rd bedroom
Three bedrooms are rare in NYC where most of the condo and co-op inventory consists of studios, one bedrooms or two bedroom units.
The maid’s room is typically smaller and located on the opposite end of the apartment from the other bedrooms, and thus if converted into a bedroom it can be quite popular for teenagers in particular.
The maid’s room can also be used as a study or home office, or even a nursery if a baby is in the works.
Of course, you can use the maid’s room for its original purpose, but this article assumes that having a live-in maid is the product of a long, bygone era.
There’s a formal dining room for dinner parties
If you like hosting friends over for dinner or having dinner parties, then a classic 6 might be the perfect apartment for you given how rare it is to see separate, formal dining rooms in more modern layouts today.
You can feel good about inviting your friends to sit down in your separate, formal dining room when they probably don’t even have a dining table in their apartment.
