Demeter back with Aspen 6 condos in Bucktown

Aspen 6 elevation

We noticed Aspen 6 because the name sounded a little silly (boy band from Colorado, bandits on skis, rich snow bunny with fading looks?). Then we noticed Attila Demeter’s name attached to the condo project, planned for 1915 N Damen Ave, and began to take it seriously. Demeter’s Berteau Court townhouses, at Clark and Berteau, are among our favorite Chicago townhouse projects (a compliment that doesn’t do Demeter justice, given the paucity of good townhouse designs in the city), and his Racine Terrace may be the best four-story residential design built in Lake View during the last 20 years (again, sorry Attila, not much of a category).

Demeter might be a genius, which could explain why he’s had so few residential projects in Chicago over the years. At Berteau Court, as well as Racine Terrace and the Lakeview Row Houses, he exhibits not only a great sense of proportion and an eye for original, aesthetically pleasing exteriors, but also a real talent for interiors that flow and feel much larger than they are. His philosophy dictates urban developments that are dense and units that are far from enormous but manage a feeling of expansiveness nonetheless through means obvious and not-so.

Aspen 6, as you might have guessed, has six condos, ranging from 1,550 to 2,700 square feet. The design calls for large roof decks and an oval central courtyard. The first floor is parking and the next two levels contain four duplex condos, each a corner unit. Two penthouses take up the fourth and fifth floors.

We see enough floor plans that it takes a lot to pique our interest, much less get us excited, but the fifth-floor living levels on these look fairly stunning. The dining room opens onto a large roof deck on one end of the penthouse, the living room opens onto a mirror deck on the other end, and in between are two smaller decks with curved edges overlooking the central courtyard. A two-story atrium opens to the family room below, and a long gallery connects the two halves of the unit.

Ok, it’s not for everyone, but neither is the boxy Standard Floor Plan found with some small variation (often very small) in most new-construction condo buildings of this size.

(Visited 132 times, 1 visits today)