Lifestyle doyenne Martha Stewart, more at home with comforters than cars, likely never dreamed her commuting-to-work routine would inspire a way of living, which could be called insider parking. But the developer of a 19-story residential building nearing completion in Manhattan, just blocks from the 19-story Starret-Lehigh building where Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has its offices, modeled its 15 “sky” garages after Stewart’s habit of driving her vehicle straight into the freight elevator and up to her office.
The paparazzi-proof residential building takes the privacy and parking ease of a gated community from the burbs to the “urbs” and turns it on end. Called 200 Eleventh Avenue, it is said to be the first high-rise in the U.S. to provide individual parking “rooms,” one outside each of the tower’s duplexes.