Sales are expected to start next month for the 13 condominium apartments being created at the attractive, five-story, red-brick, 31,000-square-foot building at 231-5 East 17th Street facing Stuyvesant Square. Occupancy of the building, which will be known as Landmark 17, is planned for next summer.

The building was acquired earlier this year for $10.25 million by Vesta Development from the Hazelden Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting people with alcohol and drug addictions.

Eight of the apartments will have private gardens and terraces and the building's former chapel is being converted into a four-story apartment with 23-foot-high ceilings.

The developers plan to add a lap pool to the 1,500-square-foot- roof deck of one of the penthouses and hot tubs to the other two penthouses.

Apartments will range in size from about 1,200 to 3,500 square feet and prices will start at about $1.5 million for a two-bedroom apartment.

The east part of the building was erected in 1877 and designed by Emlen T. Little and the west part of the building was built in 1883 and designed by Charles C. Haight. Originally it was the St. John the Baptist House and eventually it was taken over by the Salvation Army and then the Hazelden Foundation, the famous Minnesota rehab.

In their book, "The A.I.A. Guide to New York City Architecture, Fourth Edition" (Three Rivers Press, 2000), Elliot Willensky and Norval White described the building, which is in the Stuyvesant Square Historic District, as "picturesque, asymmetrical Victorian Gothic."

The building has a 10-step stoop with a canopy and several of the windows on the first and second floors have windowless arched tops. The building has a two-story-high chapel, sidewalk landscaping, high ceilings and protruding air-conditioners.

Stuyvesant Square is similar in size and quality to nearby Gramercy Park and it is also convenient to the Flatiron district and Greenwich Village.

This property is just to the north of St. George's Church, which used to be patronized by J. P. Morgan, the financier.