A Manhattan Apartment Full of Salvaged Finds

For years, Elena Colombo loved the live-work studio she shared with her partner, Mark Lavelle, in an industrial section of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. She had a workshop and office where she could tinker, and was near the artisans and vendors that her company, FireFeatures, needed to make large-scale fire bowls and sculptures.

As her business grew, though, more of her production moved to a facility in Factoryville, Pa. She and Mr. Lavelle, both 61, saw that as an opportunity to move back to Manhattan, where they’d previously lived.

Their location in Brooklyn “felt kind of far removed,” Ms. Colombo said, adding that they also have houses in Greenport, N.Y., and outside Scranton, Pa., so they liked the idea of living in the heart of the city.

“I just love being in Manhattan, because that’s where everybody is,” she said. “All my friends were still there.”

In the spring of 2019, she and Mr. Lavelle, who works in health care-related finance, bought a two-bedroom, 1,700-square-foot condominium in a 1920s Art Deco building near Penn Station for about $1.9 million. They were pleased that it was a corner unit with windows facing two directions, and that the location made it easy to get into, out of and around the city by car or public transit.