An Apartment in a Viennese Police Station

Every so often I remember to read the New York Times real estate section...

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By JOEL WEICKGENANT
Published: January 19, 2011

VIENNA NIVES WIDAUER, a visual artist, has an apartment in one of the safest buildings in Vienna — a police station. “I don’t have to lock the doors,” Ms. Widauer, 45, said.

But the building, a pale brick 19th-century mansion with tall windows, has a troubled history.

In World War II, it was seized from its Jewish owners by the Nazis. When the house was returned to the rightful owners after the war, they no longer wanted to live in Austria.

The house remains in the family — the current owners are the granddaughter and grandson of the couple who left Europe — but the building is leased by the state. One apartment (Ms. Widauer’s) is set aside as a residence; the rest is rented to the police department.

Ms. Widauer found her apartment 15 years ago, she said, when she moved here from Switzerland; she pays 2,000 euros (about $2,700) a month for her space, which takes up half of the third level. The other half is soon to be converted to a forensics storage facility.

After years of changing the décor and function of the 2,700-square-foot apartment’s eight rooms, Ms. Widauer decided it was time to give the space a real face-lift. Enlisting the help of fellow artists and friends to keep the costs down, she spent about five months refinishing the original herringbone wood floors, renovating the bathroom and kitchen, and replacing old insulation and pipes. (Ms. Widauer and her landlords, who live in South Africa, split the cost of about 40,000 euros, or just over $54,000.)

“The floors are not perfect now, but you cannot imagine how they looked” in June 2009, when she began the work, she said, adding that she didn’t mind the imperfections because they reveal the house’s character.

Ms. Widauer gave an architect several pieces of her artwork in exchange for creating the steel-framed, insulated door that closes off the living room from the dining area, which is in a glass-walled conservatory and gets very cold during the winter. She also bought a used Speckstein fireplace that radiates heat throughout the apartment; combined with the upgraded insulation, it has reduced her heating costs by 20 percent, she said.

Sometimes people ask her what it’s like living with the police, Ms. Widauer said. She tells them it has been anything but difficult: she has a good relationship with the officers, though she doesn’t see them often. In fact, there has been only one situation in which the living arrangement gave her pause.

“Three years ago, there was a terrible murder in the neighborhood,” she said, and the perpetrator came to turn himself in at about 2:30 a.m.

“I came home at roughly the same hour,” she added. “I’m really happy I didn’t meet him.”

A bit of a scare — but no reason to start locking the doors.

View original article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/greathomesanddestinations/20location.html