Don't want to live in the big city? Pretend.

Back in the 60s Peter, an iceback originally from England, and his freckle-faced girlfriend from Denver brought towels and soap when they came to visit so they could use our shower. They lived in a loft a block or two south on Avenue B, in a part of Manhattan we called the East Village then less as a prediction than a joke. Lofts - rental spaces in abandoned industrial buildings - were big in the 60s and still bigger later after the struggling artists who tended to occupy them were replaced by struggling mortgage bankers and the process known as gentrification set in.

Now they're selling like hotcakes in...what's this?...the 'burbs:

Such houses—many of them apartments, but a growing number of them detached, suburban piles—are an increasingly common sight in America's suburban landscape, particularly in the West. One development outside Denver, the Ironworks Lofts, offers five "loft-inspired" models—detached faux-warehouses with urban monikers like the Ballpark, the Steam Plant, and the Cannery; the architect says that requests to buy the plans have been rolling in from across the country. And while some developers cheat and call something a loft simply because it has a high ceiling, most immerse their creations in factory grit: roll-up garage doors, exposed ductwork, brick or cinder block walls, caged floodlights. "The more industrial the better," says Marta Borsanyi, a housing industry consultant.

Of course when you go outdoors you don't find yourself in the City That Never Sleeps, you find yourself in the world of automatic lawn sprinklers.

So maybe it would be a good idea, still, to bring some soap and a towel.

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