"Oscar Schafer has the most beautiful duplex penthouse at the Hampshire House and has recently bought the contiguous apartment," she said.
The contiguous apartment scenario eliminates some basic stepparenting snags — Ella is expected to make her bed, and if Ramona and Joe were living in Ms. Curtis's house, they would be, too, and that's a turf battle everyone is happy to avoid.
That is why, brokers say, more New Yorkers have recently joined forces with neighbors in selling contiguous apartments.
Though units in older condominiums also can be combined, the chances of finding two or more contiguous apartments available for sale at the same time are limited.
For example, property records show that in June the developer Harry Macklowe closed on the purchase of seven contiguous condominium apartments at the newly refurbished Plaza, with more than 13,000 square feet of space.
In 2003 he bought a contiguous one-bedroom apartment, and in 2004 he undertook a renovation that incorporated all of his purchases.
Mr. Burger represents three separate owners who are offering their contiguous two-bedroom apartments as a proposed combination and who will not sell otherwise.
But at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she had worked for two years of their marriage, their apartment was contiguous to the dorm rooms.
"The law doesn't say anything about the space that constitutes an apartment being contiguous," he said, "so you can have a maid's room on the first floor associated with an apartment on a different floor".
"But at this point it's a little boring to be in the same place all the time, working there and sleeping there," he continued, pointing to the two contiguous zones of his apartment.
At the end of March, Mr. Ruimy, operating through a series of limited liability corporations, closed on five apartments, including four contiguous units on the 17th and 18th floors at the Laurel, a 31-story limestone and glass tower at 400 East 67th Street, at First Avenue, for a total of $11.5 million.
