By: CHERYL B. WILSON
The Daily Hampshire Gazette

[ Originally published on: Friday, February 02, 2007 ]

Lynn Hoffman's life has come full circle. She grew up in an artist's colony outside New York City and now, in retirement, she lives in a loft apartment at Eastworks, the former Easthampton factory that now houses retail shops, offices, artist studios and nearly 50 apartments.

More than half the apartment tenants are artists, including graphic designers, painters, photographers, craftspeople, musicians and people connected with the theater.

Loft-style living has intrigued Hoffman since she visited an artist's loft in Manhattan when she was a little girl. "In one corner was a kerosene stove and the only place to sit was a huge double bed," she remembered. The loft was the home of realist painter Ben Shahn, a friend and contemporary of Hoffman's mother.

Hoffman is an internationally known family therapist who was on the faculty of the Smith College School for Social Work, but she is also the daughter of an artist.

She has fond memories of her childhood in Rockland County, N.Y., where, she says, "The studio was the most important room in the house."

Her mother was Ruth Reeves, an Art Deco textile designer, who also coordinated the Index of American Design, a Depression-era WPA project that recorded thousands of folk designs.

Among their neighbors was a refugee couple, a man with a beard and his wife, who made marvelous Hungarian strudel, Hoffman recalled. They were Kurt Weill, composer of the famous "The Threepenny Opera" and stage actress Lotte Lenya.

The Eastworks loft-style apartments are enormous with banks of huge windows reaching from waist height to the 20-foot ceilings. Hoffman's apartment has two lofts, one an extra bedroom and the other for storage. The main floor is a vast open space with ladder-like structures along the ceiling like catwalks in a theater. These carry the mechanicals - electricity, cable and telephone, alongside pipes for hot water.

"I like this. It's huge and bright," Hoffman said. "At the end of the day, it's this golden color."

She discovered the Eastworks apartments during an open house several years ago. "There was a fair here and the shops and studios were open," she said. She saw the studio-apartment near the one she now rents and couldn't believe how spacious it was.

At the Lathrop Community she was spending as much on monthly maintenance fees as she would pay in rent at Eastworks.

Apartment rental fees at Eastworks range from $750 to $1,850 a month for lofts from 750 square feet to 3,400 square feet. The larger, more expensive ones have magnificent views of Mount Tom.

"I met some of the younger and older people here," she said. "They have created a kind of community for themselves. I am so charmed by the kind of people drawn to this place. I felt very much at home.

"I hit the rental office every week for three weeks until there was an opening," she said. Three years ago, she sold her house and moved to Eastworks, a move she has never regretted.

Distinctive living areas

"I have five living areas. I don't try to hide the fact I don't have walls," she said. Despite the lack of walls, each area is distinctive.

View from the loft of the "living room" area.

The large beautiful windows.

Another great view of the "living" area of the lofts.

Kitchen sitting area and living room areas of the loft.

Upper loft bedroom.

The kitchen.

Another view of the kitchen area.

The view from the North side.

Another view from the North side apartments.

All pictures were taken by Kevin Gutting for the Daily Hampshire Gazette