Crosby Place, Soho

Soho lofts get sold on their bones and then have the bones taken out. The columns go inside drywall, the brick gets skimmed, the double-height window becomes two floors of something sensible. This one has not had that done to it.

The cast-iron columns are still standing in the room, Corinthian capitals and all, doing the job they were cast for. The windows still run nearly two storeys up the front wall. The brick is still brick.

The main room takes the whole front of the loft, forty feet by twenty-nine on the plan: columns down the middle, a fireplace on the front wall, bookcases to the ceiling, and enough height that the trees planted indoors have gone up rather than out. A spiral stair climbs to the floor above, which is a study, railed, with the rest of that level left open to the room below.

The kitchen is cherry and stainless under a run of cabinetry. The bedrooms are quieter: white, high, one of them with an arched fanlight over the bed and heavy curtains either side. Three baths, one of them tiled in green to the picture rail.

At grade behind the loft there is a courtyard, properly planted, with the neighbouring walls and fire escapes rising around it and furniture set out under the greenery.

Rove Travel manages the loft and holds the calendar. Availability is seasonal, because the owner lives in it for part of the year, so the dates that exist are the dates there are. Thirty nights minimum, housekeeping every second week at a set rate, and no pets.