WHAT if you had never settled down? Never taken that job for the health insurance, or decided to start a family? For New Yorkers of a certain age, those are the middle-of-the night questions, the nagging thoughts that occur as they squeeze themselves onto the packed No. 1 train for another day at the office, ignoring that unfinished screenplay or latent desire to chuck everything and live in an ashram.

New Yorkers in midlife crisis, meet the brotherhood of Fortress Astoria: Danaher Dempsey, Luke Crane, Rick Brown and Shyaporn Theerakulstit, best friends and artists.

They have no children, no linear career histories, no readily disposable savings. The four men, all heterosexual, approaching 40 and never married, have lived together for 18 years, give or take a revolving guest roommate, cohabitating in spaces like an East Village walk-up, a Chelsea loft and, now, a converted office space in Queens.

Their latest home, which they have nicknamed Fortress Astoria, takes up the second and third floors of a slate gray concrete block building with floor-to-ceiling windows on 31st Street. The setup is ideal for four bachelors. Bedrooms do not share common walls, and there are communal spaces both upstairs (huge television, sofa) and down (kitchen). There is a lovely garden out back tended by Mr. Theerakulstit.