The back stairs, reconsidered.
A building is known by the condition of its service entries — an argument for the stairs no one sees.
The first place we look, when we assess a building, is not the front entry. It is the back stairs.
A building’s service stair — the stair the porters used in 1912, the stair the caterers use now, the stair the building supervisor takes every morning — is the place the building’s condition is hardest to hide. The paint is older. The repairs are more honest. The lighting is whatever lighting the building’s last manager thought was adequate, and the floor is whatever floor survived the last two redecorations of the front hall.
A well-kept service stair is the single most reliable indicator we have that a building is managed to the standard its residents expect. We have turned down buildings for our portfolio on this basis. We have, more often, taken buildings on and invested quietly in the service stair for a year before the front hall saw any attention at all.
A residence is known by the stairs no one sees.