This Library Loft Will Give You Downtown Living Jealousy

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The Library Lofts building downtown (located above Vincente's Cuban Cuisine) has long been enviable and therefore totally rented out. But last year two brothers convinced the building owners Mindfield, (the people renovating the GAR to be their future office) that a space that they were using for storage would be better off as an apartment instead. They were Ben Bator, co-founder of Texts From Last Night and creative consultant (he worked on the X Games bid too), and his brother Phil, editor of Thrillist Detroit and executive editor of TFLN. And now they live here with Barry, an adopted German Shepard who matches his frisbee to the Eames chairs.

This roughly 2,200 square foot loft has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a urinal left over from previous tenants (now part of the bar area). The apartment's sliding wood and glass doors are repurposed from downtown's David Whitney building but the counter tops are freshly made. The Bators worked with friend Phil Cooley to pour custom countertops over at Pony Ride, which took the manpower of every single person they knew to transport to downtown.

The brothers moved in last February and set about decorating with items from the Detroit Mercantile Co., paintings by Robert-David Jones, and Signal-Return prints, among other things. The church pew in the hallway was leftover from the apartment's days of storing a random assortment of things. While the apartment is in a rather perfect location with amazing light and stylish furnishings, there is the small matter of being closed in by a parking garage. Dan Gilbert's Z lot project is slowly taking away pieces of the view from this apartment. Progress has a price, people.

· Michelle and Chris Gerard Photographers [Official]
· Check Out The Library Loft In Love With Salvaged Furniture [Curbed Detroit]