Doug Nielsen displays his large collection of artwork in his two lofts, which are part of the Downtown Ice House Lofts development.

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When people talk about dividing their time between two properties, those properties are usually some distance apart: New York and Miami, London and Los Angeles, Tucson and Seattle.

Doug Nielsen divides his time between two, two-story lofts in Tucson: one above the other.

Good thing he's so fit; the dancer-turned-choreographer — now professor at the University of Arizona's School of Dance — thinks nothing of pounding those dancer's feet several times a day up and down the staircase that separates the lofts.

The dual living situation came about after Nielsen, 60, rented one of the Downtown lofts when he moved to Tucson in 2006. Nielsen collects modern art and is the proverbial magpie when it comes to secondhand and antiques shopping, seizing on pieces he loves and somehow making a space for them. But the loft was a tight squeeze compared with the house he'd sold in Los Angeles.

So when his landlord offered to sell him the loft above him, he jumped — and then found he wanted to keep both.

It fit not only with his art-collector habit, but also with his personality. He's mercurial, dynamic and easily bored (no prizes for guessing his astrological sign) and he sees the split-living as a boon.

Thanks to the open, white walls of the lofts, Nielsen not only has his own private gallery, but there's no need for wallpaper or paint. The black-and-white photographs and bright, abstract modern art provide all the décor that's needed.

But even with four whole floors and 2,400 square feet to play with, Nielsen still struggles to display everything. So, many of his photographs and paintings are stacked up against the walls; this way he can rotate his artwork and allow each of them a chance to be in the forefront.

There's art, too, in his furniture collection, much of it purchased in Los Angeles and New York, where he also lived for a time, and including chairs by Charles Eames and Philippe Starck.

Nielsen gets a lot of his stuff at bargain prices, from flea markets, closing-down shops or antiques stores. And he mixes it up with family heirlooms — a heavy wooden dressing table, for instance, and a re-covered armchair.

So much for the traditional image of lofts being all stark and minimalist — this place is a jumble of stuff, albeit a neat one.

Nielsen scoffs at the very idea of lofts being bare, and also at what lofts have become.

"The philosophy of a loft is to show everything, not hide it away," he says. "When I lived in a brownstone in New York, my friends that lived in lofts were comfortable with that no-wall thing, and then people like lawyers started buying lofts and putting up walls."

The properties are part of the Downtown Ice House Lofts development, which inhabit the former Arizona Ice and Cold Storage Co. They overlook a railroad track, which appeals to Nielsen's artistic senses.

He shot hours' worth of footage of the trains as a backdrop for one of his dance performances. And in the unlikely event that he tires of his own rotating art collection, he need only look out the window for more. The trains, he says, are his "sideways art."