I’ve been browsing local real estate listings a lot lately, and yes, there is definitely a trend in mid-70s era apartment buildings to have a sunken living room. Not all by any means, but around here, there are 3 or 4 that feature them.
Most of them have a dining area just off the kitchen/foyer, and then the sunken living room on the outside wall, with the balcony access. The ceilings all seem to be one level, though, so yes, the ceiling in the living room area is relatively higher than in the dining area and kitchen.
I guess they just accepted having to make each floor a foot or two higher overall to accommodate this, which probably explains why they aren’t more common, and don’t seem to be made any more. If it’s a 10 story building, an extra foot of height on each floor adds up to 10 feet, which is almost enough to make it an 11 story building, so you can either make a smaller building using less materials, or a bigger building with more units to sell.
I have sold houses that had multiple levels, sometimes built on a hillside, where they made more sense. Some house plans have you, after entering the front door, step up 2-4 steps for one part of the house, but step down 2-4 steps for another, and one floor is essentially on top of the other. Your entry way is mid-floor level.
In college I dated a guy briefly that was from Long Island [near Lake Ronkonkoma] and his entire neighborhood [probably 4 streets by 5 streets] where all the closely packed houses built in the 60s were classic split levels - basement level garage on the left, stairs up to a livingroom with a conversation pit focused on a stacked stone fireplace at the front of the house with a sort of entry foyer, in the center leading to the dining area/kitchen at the back of the house, a staircase in the foyer hall to the upstairs that was centered above the garage with 3 bedrooms and a bathroom.
I actually looked at a fabulous early 70s dome house, the central dome was about 25 feet in diameter, the center was a sunken conversation pit circling around one of those funky round open fireplaces and had 4 rectangular arch topped rooms coming off the center dome - 2 bedrooms, an entry with the bathroom along one side and the utilities along the other [hot water heater, furnace, washer and dryer] and the kitchen dining area in the 4th ‘wing’. Normally I would have jumped at the idea of renting it, but the plasterwork on the inside and outside was starting to spall and flake off and I had a horror of finding out that the interior of my bedroom would end up on me sometime in the middle of the night. I think in retrospect that it had moisture issues that the landlord had covered up with a fast coat of paint on the outside and a quick spray of ceiling coating on the entire inside. It had that funky multicolored inch and a half long shag in 3 tones of blue.
My cousin’s old house had one, but it had more to do with it being built in hilly terrain. Lowering it meant that doors on either sided would be ground level. I think it was an addon room, actually.
His new house has a step down laundry room–or at least, that’s what the room was when it was my grandmother’s. That one was just because it was a converted porch. The library (not a huge room) was also a step down.
My childhood home was a split level. Front door came into a 6x8ft landing. You could go up 5 steps to the main floor with living room,kitchen,bathroom, and 2 bedrooms.
Or go down 5 steps to a den, bathroom,and 3 guest bedrooms.
I originally used the bedroom next to my parents bedroom. I moved downstairs to a guest bedroom in high school. More privacy, I could listen to music or watch tv without disturbing my parents.
I do vaguely remember sunken living rooms. A couple of my friends homes had them. It was always one step down from another room.
The house my family bought in 1980 had a sunken family room off the kitchen. It also had a cathedral ceiling. Two steps down to the family room, which also had the door out to the patio.
There were several of the same model house on that block.
In the 70s, when I was a kid, I always wanted a sunken living room. They seemed so cool, so modern. Now that I’m old, I worry about falling down in one and breaking my hip.
My current house does have a sunken bathtub, custom made. Now that’s unusual, at least in Arizona. It’s the only house in the neighborhood that has one.
Bob Newhart’s apartment is hardly the most egregious example. What about Friends - how is it a group of marginally employed 20 somethings managed to afford to live in those palatial flats in that real estate market?
Rent control, or at least that how it was explained in a couple of episodes. Monica technically took over the lease from her (dead) grandmother. How Chandler and Joey slipped in, I have no idea. Mind you, I have no idea how rent control in New York City in the 1990s actually worked.
I think it was established fairly early on that Monica was illegally subletting the apartment from her dead grandmother–there was an episode where the building super threatened to report them unless Joey taught him how to dance (don’t ask). As for Chandler and Joey, their apartment was portrayed as smaller, and Chandler supposedly had a pretty good job. He had stock options and year-end bonuses, and stuff like that, so he might have been able to afford it.
When they switched apartments, you’d think that would have screwed up the illegal sublet, but hey, it’s TV.
