The Mary Tyler Moore Show Apartment Was the Epitome of Single Girl Cool

Mary Tyler Moore just passed away at the age of 80. While she accomplished much in her decades-long career, many will remember her best as Mary Richards, the single, never-married career woman that was the center of Moore’s eponymous show. We’ll also never forget that sweet, sweet apartment.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show aired on CBS from 1970 until 1977 and is one of the most widely-acclaimed programs in television history, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series three years in a row, with Moore taking home four statues for her performance, as well.

But if you ask people who watched the show (while it was airing or during its prolific reruns), Mary’s first apartment was a character in its own right—and very covetable.

Mary’s spacious studio was on the top floor of a Minneapolis Queen Anne Victorian, complete with Palladian windows and an iron balcony. And while it boasted many a disco-era decorating choice (hello, shag carpet), it also had tons of classic charm: exposed brick, built-in bookcases, vaulted ceilings, and exposed beams. I can’t tell you how much I want a stained-glass window pass-through for my own tiny kitchen. It was a catch.

Hooked on Houses shared a snapshot of the apartment’s description in the show’s script, which says about as much:

And it just got better once decorated. Only Mary Richards could make a sleeper sofa cool. She was also a proponent of one of our favorite small space solutions (and a permanent assignment in our annual January Cure), the landing strip. That tiny kitchen maximized its vertical space with a hanging pot rack and various cubbies and shelves.

But one of our favorite parts about Mary & her apartment was that there were always people over (sure, that’s the nature of a sitcom, but still). Entertaining in a small space can be a hurdle to some, and Mary was never afraid to rearrange furniture to squeeze in a dinner party.

So thanks, Mary Tyler Moore, for showing that single girls could live stylishly, too.

You can stream the first three seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Hulu.