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A Haunted House With a Dramatic Past
Every year, Janna Kennedy and Randall Hyten turn their co-op Italianate mansion on Clinton Avenue into the most authentic haunted house in town. And as you can see from the photo (at right) that we snapped last week, they’re not above making a political statement in the process. After moving into a rental unit in the building in 1985, the couple squatted in the second and third floors after the owner died and the house was left in temporary limbo. And in 2000, after the death of the previous owner’s last heir, Ms. Kennedy and Mr. Hyten were finally able to buy the house, for $599,000.
Given their own lack of capital, the purchase involved finding a co-investor (one of Kesley’s teachers), buying out the remaining tenants (for $21,830 each, a number they “pulled out of the sky,” she said), and renovating the building into four condos – a lower duplex, plus cellar, for themselves and three floor-through apartments to sell because the co-investor decided not to live there. The work, which took two years and cost about $450,000, was finished in 2002. The two-bedroom, approximately 1,400-square-foot apartments, painstakingly restored and updated with new stainless steel kitchens with granite counters, two baths and washer-dryer units, each sold for $635,000. We were only able to catch a glimpse of the front hall when we strolled by but are hoping to get another chance to see how the restoration turned out.
A Brownstone Goes Horrorwood [NY Times]
10/31/2005 1:42 PM
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House of the Day: Brick Colonial on Albemarle
We missed this house on Albemarle Road for our Open House Picks this week but are curious to hear from anyone who attended on Sunday. At $1,450,000, the price is on the high end for the neighborhood but it looks like it could be worth it in this case given the 7 bedrooms, garage and billiard room. There aren’t a lot of pics on the A&H website, so we’d like to hear whether you think the interior finishes and details justify the price tag. Is this the best location in the area?
Stunning Brick Colonial Revival [Aguayo & Huebener] GMAP
10/31/2005 11:22 AM
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The Cambridge Reno Blog Launches Today
Shahn Andersen’s highly anticipated renovation blog is ready for prime time. We’re totally psyched that Shahn has signed on to let us all tag along as he takes on what will no doubt be the difficult but thoroughly rewarding rehabilitation of his Civil War-era woodframe house on Cambridge Place in Clinton Hill. He got a jump start on the blog last week and has already found time to share his initial discussions with the landmarks commission as well as his frustration with “some asshole on the block” who keeps calling DOB over the most minor details. Fumes Andersen:
Are you kidding me? This building has been rotting for years, and finally someone is going to fix it up, and you are calling the DOB because there is a little debris in front of the fence? Why didn’t you complain to the DOB when vagrants were shitting on the sidewalk?
Good question, indeed. Clearly, Shahn isn’t going to be pulling any punches. We can’t wait.
Getting Started [Cambridge Reno]
10/31/2005 10:13 AM
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Recently Sold in Brooklyn
PARK SLOPE $900,000
118 Eighth Avenue
1,400-sq.ft. duplex co-op in a prewar building; 24-hr. doormen, windowed eat-in kitchen, NY harbor view; maintenance $1,237, 55% tax-deductible; listed at $895,000 (multiple bids). (Broker: Warren Lewis Realty)
DYKER HEIGHTS $595,000
8935 15th Avenue
Two-family brick townhouse, on an 18-by-97-foot lot, with three- bedroom, 11/2-bath owner’s duplex with formal living and dining room over studio rental; home features oak floors, new appliances, new roof, back yard, BBQ gas hookup, driveway and garage. Taxes $3,361. Asking price $650,000, on market 137 days. (Broker: Deborah Rieders, the Corcoran Group)
PROSPECT HEIGHTS $460,500
230 Park Place
Prewar one-bedroom, one-bath co-op, 800 square feet, with sunken living room, formal dining area, renovated windowed kitchen, master bath with soaking tub and shower, dressing room/nursery, hardwood floors, original details, dishwasher and southern exposure; Art Deco building features full-time doorman and elevator. Maintenance $814, 48 percent tax-deductible. Asking price $449,000, on market two weeks. (Broker: Stan Gerasimczyk, the Corcoran Group)
Residential Sales [NY Times-Item 1]
Just Sold! [NY Post-Items 2 & 3]
10/31/2005 10:00 AM
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Hellish Landlord Drawing Protest in the Slope
A three-story building at 152 Fourth Avenue between Douglass and Butler is drawing attention for the particularly negligence of its landlord, Gustav Rodriguez; another four buildings owned by Rodriguez have also drawn similar complaints. Among the complaints: Peeling paint, no heat and “an overwhelming stench of sewage in the halls.” The building had 40 tenants last year and now only 8 are left, prompting charges that the landlord is doing everything he can to rid the building of its rent-stabilized tenants so he can cash in on the Fourth Avenue boom that’s underway. A protest rally is scheduled for today outside the buildings.
Tenants Rally vs. Hell Buildinh [NY Daily News] GMAP
10/31/2005 9:27 AM
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Go, Go, Gowanus! The Times Weighs In
Gowanus goes under the New York Times microscope this week with the bottom line of the story going something like this: Real estate developers have already staked their ground in the hopes that the area along the canal will be rezoned to more favorably accommodate residential while brownstone hunters who are willing to walk a few short blocks to nearby Smith Street and Park Slope can find deals at significant discounts to those two areas. The evidence?
Earlier this year, Ms. Walker’s firm sold a town house in need of some renovation on 11th Street between Third and Fourth Avenues for $825,000. On Seventh Street, Bonnie Coape-Arnold, an agent with Brooklyn Properties, sold a three-story, two-family town house with an owner’s duplex for $760,000.
With unsurprising optimism, Hal Lehrman, co-owner of Brooklyn Properties, sums the investment thesis up: “There’s a lot of potential in the whole Gowanus area. You’re between very expensive neighborhoods, so it’s a no-brainer.”
Some See Venice, Some See a Canal [NY Times]
10/31/2005 8:56 AM
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Monday Linkage
No Sell Out, Greenpoint. Photo by Bluejake
Ferrer Chided Over Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
Ferrer Chided Over Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
Tenant Living in Limbo [NY Times]
Brooklyn Bridge Park Condo Controversy [NY Daily News]
Rising Heating Bills This Winter [NY Post]
Landing the Right Landlord [NY Post]
Ghoul Digs [NY Post]
Day Care Cuts in Red Hook [b61 productions]
10/31/2005 8:33 AM
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Open House Picks
Fort Greene
202 Clermont Avenue
Prudential Douglas Elliman
Sunday 12-2pm
$2,200,000   $2,000,000
GMAP       ARCHIVE
206 Warren Street
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 1-4pm
$1,800,000
GMAP Fort Greene
122 South Oxford Street
Corcoran
Sunday 1-3pm
$1,300,000
GMAP Park Slope
94 15th Street
Park Terrace Properties
Sunday 1-3pm
$825,,000
GMAP
10/28/2005 4:51 PM
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MAS Proposed Downtown Landmark #15
Where: 532-540 Fulton Street
When: 1892
Why: Displaying interesting terra cotta and stone detailing, this five-bay commercial building housed F.W. Woolworth’s from at least 1903 until about 1940 (when the store relocated to its new art deco building at No. 408 Fulton Street). Earlier it had been the center of Brooklyn’s thriving piano-sales district.
Architecturally Significant Buildings [Municipal Arts Society] GMAP
10/28/2005 3:23 PM
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Ferrer, Then Marty, Speak Out Against Yards’ Scale
We have to admit we haven’t found anything to get us particularly excited by Fernando Ferrer. But we were interested to hear him stake out a fairly clear position on the Atlantic Yards project in his conversation with the Daily News:
“We’re talking about a lot of mass in that project, a lot of mass. And if we don’t deal with a lot of the other issues – like traffic, like schools, like police protection, like sanitation and health care – I think we have a problem,” Ferrer said. “We’ve got to make this human-size now,” he concluded. “This can’t be the mother of all real estate deals. If it is that, then, I think it’s wrong.”
He did fail, however, to offer any concrete suggestions for how he would cut the project back.
Within 24 hours Marty Markowitz was following suit, calling for a reduction in size without a reduction in benefits for the community. “The urban design challenge is how do we [preserve] the benefits and downscale the heights of the buildings proposed,” Markowitz said. Where were you six months ago, Marty?
Freddy Fires Net Salvo [NY Daily News]
Beep’s Downsize Call [NY Daily News]
10/28/2005 8:55 AM
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Friday Links
Blue Building, Red Hook. Photo by David F. Gallagher
The Yolk’s on Crown Heights [Curbed]
When Crap Ages [Transfer]
Gowanus Canal Renewal [Corante NY]
Bonus Babies [NY Observer]
Real Estate Rates Trend Upward [Inman]
Public Romp in The Slope [Daily Slope]
10/28/2005 8:24 AM
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MAS Proposed Downtown Landmark #14
Where: 567, 569 and 571 Fulton Street
When:
Why: Two excellent examples of cast iron commercial facades are visible. The third, having suffered fire damage, remains potentially viable. In 1885, No. 569 Fulton housed Anderson & Company, the Brooklyn representative of Hardman Peck, pinao manufacturers specializing in player pianos. It later became, successively, a branch of the Franklin Trust Company in 1909, Atlantic National Bank in 1922, and Bank of America in 1924 until at least 1929. No. 571, in 1880, was the headquarters of the Young Men’s Central Garfield and Arthur Club. In 1897, it housed the Brooklyn Furniture Company and in 1907 was a slent movie theatre.
Architecturally Significant Buildings [Municipal Arts Society] GMAP
10/27/2005 2:16 PM
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Set Speed’s Thursday Condo Report: The Liberty
The Liberty Condos: Aguayo & Huebener are at it again with the new development projects, this time in the South South Slope, at 207 22nd St between 4th and 5th Avenues. Apparently an opening party was already held for interested buyers–we didn’t make the cut though. The building’s website doesn’t provide much more information than a phone number while the A&H site guarantees that it’s “meticulously crafted” with unusually wide and sun-filled spaces. All units have private outdoor spaces, 10-foot ceilings and gourmet kitchens with granite countertops.
Interestingly enough, this project already has real pictures or a model unit, unlike the Washington Condos. A quick drive-by this weekend revealed that this is a ‘Fedder’s project’. The building is hailed as new construction, but from the looks of it, the builders went for the retro look to blend in with the neighborhood. The brick-faced front belies any modern amenities it may have inside. The top floor also has a weird-looking mansard-roof wannabe perch. Prices start at $599,000 for a 1,200-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit with private terrace to $700,000 for 1,600-square-foot duplexes with a 900-square-foot private garden.
Homepage [The Liberty] GMAP
The Liberty Condos [Aguayo & Huebener]
Every Thursday, ltjbukem, whose own blog Set Speed scrutinizes the progress and quality of new developments in the area we know as Brownstone Brooklyn, pens a guest post about goings-on in the condo market with an emphasis on new projects.
10/27/2005 11:32 AM
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Community Economic Development Forum Friday
Is there hope for mixed income neighborhoods? Can large-scale developers guarantee community-based jobs? These topics will be the focus of Nonprofit Connection’s 10th Annual Nonprofit Day in Brooklyn hosted by Borough President Marty Markowitz and sponsored by Citigroup Foundation, on Friday, October 28, 2005, from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street. This year’s program spotlights the City’s hot topic — Community Economic Development –with panelists from Citibank, Forest City Ratner, Thor Equities, Astella Development Corporation, Bed-Stuy Restoration and the Fifth Avenue Committee in two panel discussions focusing the roles of Private Sector and Nonprofit Sector development corporations in preserving New York City’s coveted neighborhood character and life. For reservations, call 212-383-1433 ext. 23.
10/27/2005 11:08 AM
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Making Your Stoop Shine
A brownstone owner and enthusiast emailed us this picture of the new lettering over his front door. “A gold leaf address over your door really makes a stoop shine,” he writes. Looks good to us. Who’s artist behind the job? Aimee German. She can be reached at aimshow@hotmail.com or 718-312-9430. Any other gold-leafing resources that people can recommend?
10/27/2005 10:47 AM
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Residential Sales in Brooklyn
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $235,000
166 State Street
400-sq.-ft. studio co-op in a prewar building; eat-in kitchen, high ceilings, oak floors, original moldings and detail; maintenance $586, 35% tax-deductible; lisdted at $225,000 (multiple bids), 1 week on market. (Broker: Harbor View Realty)
PARK SLOPE $640,000
243 Eighth Street (Fourth Avenue)
2-bedroom, 2-bath, 900-sq-ft condo in a new building; kitchen with updated appliances, bath and terrace off master bedroom; common charge $296; 100% tax abated; listed at $625,000 (multiple bids), 1 week on market. (Broker: Betancourt & Associates)
EAST WILLIAMSBURG $825,000
63 Skillman Avenue
2-family, 2-story, prewar wood-frame house; 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, high tin ceilings, hardwood floors in each unit; full basement; 25-by-100-ft lot; taxes $1,508; listed at $749,000 (multiple bids), 4 weeks on market. (Broker: Kline Realty)
All items from the print edition of today’s New York Times.
10/27/2005 10:01 AM
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Period Wallcoverings Out the Wazoo
Here’s a neat source for period wall coverings, specifically lincrusta and anaglypta. The website, FYHome.com, has by far the biggest selection decorative materials for Victorian period restorations that we’ve seen, including borders, panels and friezes. We’ve never ordered anything from them, but sure would be curious to hear feedback from anyone who has. How about other sources for this stuff?
Lincrusta and Anaglypta Collection [FYHome.com]
10/27/2005 9:33 AM
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Two Kinds of Development in Williamsburg
In his above-ground walk along the L train’s path, Charles Graeber makes a few keen observations about the real estate boom that has been following the eastward path of gentrification. At the start of this walk, he generalizes–quite accurately, we’d say–about the two kinds of development going up in the nabe:
The first is essentially a box, with small grilled windows set in a blond-brick façade accessorized with those brown Fedders air conditioners. These are the same buildings that are popping up all over the Hasidic enclaves in Southside Brooklyn and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. They are unattractive and, not coincidentally, the cheapest construction possible by code. In a housing boom, who needs pizzazz?
The other construction is so common that the blueprints must come free with the purchase of accounting software. It’s a modernist mini-scraper of three or four floors, plate-glass front, stainless-steel trim, with a smaller atrium or penthouse up top. It has pizzazz, but inside it’s rather similar to its cheaper brick cousin.
L-Ification [New York Magazine]
10/27/2005 9:02 AM
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astorc
May 21, 2012 | 02:16 PM