To her, however, a cabin was a small apartment. Her idea of woods was towering high-rises. Her idea of a getaway was New York City.
Ms. Baiz, who owns a jewelry and diamond wholesaler called Big Sky Gold and Diamond Brokers, has lived her whole life in Great Falls, Mont. Nearly 20 years ago, when she and her husband were having the kitchen of their century-old house remodeled, they hired a contractor who had a gem brokerage on the side. Ms. Baiz, formerly a radio reporter, seized the chance to learn the business, and later branched out on her own.
She had never been to New York until she came for a trade show a dozen years ago. After that, every time she returned for business, she liked the city more. “I had a knot in my stomach getting back on the airplane, because there was so much more that I didn’t do,” she said. “It felt like going to your favorite restaurant, ordering an appetizer and then leaving. I had too much of an appetite for New York.”
So she began visiting for weeks at a time, staying in hotels or taking sublets. Her longest stretch was last year — a 10-week stay in a Chelsea high-rise while she took a writers’ workshop. Ms. Baiz, who blogs at wedgeblog.net, writes for jewelry magazines and Signature Montana magazine.
Her husband, Tom, a lawyer who also works for her, came to visit. Over breakfast at the Aroma Espresso Bar on West 72nd Street, he suggested that she avoid the expense of hotels and the hassles of sublets by buying a small place. With their son and daughter out of college, the time was right.
“While he was in the mood for something,” Ms. Baiz said, they ran across the street to an open house for a sunny studio co-op.
“I stood outside that building and asked people, ‘What is the best thing and the worst thing about living here?’ ” Ms. Baiz said. Location was the best thing, residents told her. High maintenance was the worst. The studio’s monthly maintenance was more than $900.
The Baizes made an offer in the low $300,000s. It was declined. That was when Ms. Baiz, who ended up making four trips from Montana in the course of a year, began the hunt in earnest. Her budget maximum was $400,000, and she was determined to keep the monthly outlay under $2,000.
Her many sublets had taught her what to avoid. After staying in a high-rise, she knew she wanted a prewar building with thick walls and less risk of neighbor noise. After staying near a firehouse, “even though my dad was a fireman,” she said, “I didn’t want to live across from sirens.”
At one Upper West Side place, the seller rejected her offer in favor of a lower one from a colleague. She was disappointed, but “this did give me faith that money isn’t everything, even in New York real estate.”
Near Union Square, the selling agent guaranteed that she could move a wall to create a sleeping nook, but a contractor informed her the wall was immovable. That undermined her faith.
At the Orienta on West 79th Street, the seller accepted her offer of $353,000. Maintenance was in the $800s. She had been told that the co-op allowed pieds-à-terre on a case-by-case basis, but her case was declined.
“I was devastated,” she said. “They had a willing seller and a willing buyer.” Knowing she needed guidance from someone with expertise in Manhattan co-ops, she e-mailed three agents she found online, and chose Robyn Frank-Pedersen, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group.
Ms. Baiz told Ms. Frank-Pedersen that she didn’t mind a studio, as long as the layout allowed for some kind of sleeping spot, eating area and writing nook. She wanted a diverse neighborhood, one that provided the “yang to Montana’s yin,” she said. “I wanted to walk down my hall at dinnertime and smell at least three continents.”
Ms. Baiz liked the bachelor-pad aura of a place on West 15th Street, even though she originally mistook the Pullman kitchen, behind folding doors, for a closet. The price was around $410,000, maintenance a reasonable $560.
But the building had no doorman. She decided she needed one, primarily to keep houseguests at bay when she was back in Montana. “I didn’t want friends and relatives to look at my apartment as a key exchange, like, ‘Oh, well, just get the keys from Claire and use her apartment,’ ” she said.
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