1 Place D’Armes # 61 - $499,000
The Essentials
A multi--level three-bedroom downtown townhouse condominium next to the pool. A new price that is really too low. But it is time to find new owners for these lovely spaces..
The Big Picture
Frontenac Village, downtown Kingston’s very pretty townhouse condominium complex, is all red steel roof and brick walkway, planters stuffed with geranium and pansy. There are no cars here (those are stashed underground) but there is a lavish outdoor pool at the heart of the complex, along with a country manor’s worth of trimmed hedge and sculpted evergreen. There are cool subterranean spaces for meeting and reading, for working out. It is a salve from the daily grind, a live-in spa, a sanctuary of sorts. Number 61 is spreads over multiple levels, but you never really feel you're heading up or down. The abundant natural light seems almost to move you from top to bottom like a sci-fi escalator, and the patio off the living room both connects directly to the pool and protects its apple tree as if it was an important diplomat. There are three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a pellet stove in the living room, a heat pump, an office, parking directly outside the lower level exit, laundry, and even a workshop. It is close to dining and films, the university and the hospitals and the lake. And it is lovely just the way it is, but its price leaves room to make it truly dreamy.
The AI Question
It’s hard to imagine, sometimes, how a vacant property might look with furniture in it. And I’ve mostly resisted asking AI for assistance. But today, fortified by a game, if flagging, September sun, it occurred to me that if I’m going to use Chatgpt to help diagnose a wonky knee, as well as offer insight into my many persistent neuroses, it only makes sense to have it also make a stab at dressing up the occasional condominium.
I tried it with two different services here.
The images I paid for - those immediately beside the original shots - are distinctly ordinary. The furnishings seem to float rather than sit firmly on the carpets, as if gravity is optional. The images are suggestive, I suppose, but also distinctly unreal. And uninspiring. They distance me from the reality. So I won’t be doing that again.
The Chatgpt efforts, though, are more convincing, at least to my eye, even with the slightly honeyed and distinctly nostalgic glow. I’d live there, and surely that’s the idea, the goal.
The trouble is, real estate rules dictate that AI-assisted images must avoid “structural drift”. Windows can’t move or change shape, ceilings can’t be lifted or lowered. What’s shown must reflect what would be seen during a viewing. And it’s hard to argue with that position. But AI isn’t supposed to disappear a picture hook, wither, or a nicked baseboard, which strikes me as a bit much. Real estate listings fudge the truth constantly (there I said it). The driving time from downtown, for instance, is shortened far more often than it’s truthfully stated. Stains are hidden under carpets. Art is hung over wounds on the wall. Leaking skylights are dried and touched up the night before an open house. So if the carpet is a shade lighter in the flesh than it appears in an AI conception, I think I’m okay with that. We know it’s not real. The unvarnished, untouched image is right there for comparison. The AI image is merely food for thought, nothing more. It just saves you the twenty minutes on Pinterest as you dream up possible futures for the space.
My guess is that the Chatgpt images I received here would be deemed to have strayed too much, even if they better offer a truer sense of potential. That built-in bookcase has been replaced, after all, and the railings re-stained, perhaps. So it’s complicated. My thinking is this:
1) The truth always lies somewhere outside the frame, and is unknowable in any absolute sense.
2) It would be a serious mistake to assume it (the truth) is contained in the wide-angle colour-balanced images shot on-site for the listing, any more than it is in the AI-assisted version.
3) Find a realtor you trust. Get a good inspector. Believe your own eyes.
The Virtual Tour
The Gallery
Floor Plans
