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May 15, 2007

House of the Day: 570 Bergen Street

570BergenStreet.jpgWe're suckers for a good back story. According to a reader who heard it from a neighbor, the previous resident (it's unclear whether he was a real tenant or a squatter) at 570 Bergen Street in Prospect Heights lived in the house for many years with a dozen or so dogs. With the house already in complete disrepair, the man got very sick and the dogs were abandoned in the house. Noise, more filth and even some canine cannibalism ensued until the Department of Health stepped in. Luckily, some nice details remain in the three-story house, including a marble fireplace and the old stoop hand rail. We also think the raised front terrace has a lot of charm. The price of $900,000 certainly is interesting. Can anyone give us an eyewitness account of how bad the interiors are and whether there is a lot that could be restored?
570 Bergen Street [Douglas Elliman] GMAP P*Shark




Posted by Brownstoner at 1:21 PM | Comments (36)
Categories: Brooklyn, HOTD, Prospect Heights, Real Estate

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Comments

I think it is too close to Atlantic Yards to be very attractive.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 1:33 PM

Only one side of the stoop rail. There aren't any interior pictures except for that one mantle. The broker says it's a complete gut job. It's had a roof hole for years. To see it, you need to wear a breathing mask and sign a waiver.

There are only townhouses on one side of the street. Across the street are garage structures and empty lots. It's close to the AY footprint- but actually close to the housing part, not the stadium. Vacant lots across the street mean that your in for even more construction, or worse, a lot of sketchy loitering and dumping nearby.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 1:42 PM

This is a Steven King screenplay, people. Trailer: Peaceful brownstone facade. Rapid-fire jolting crosscut to snarling bloody teeth and red eyes. Cut back to perky realtor (Christine Baranski) putting key in door as nice young couple follow her up stoop. Realtor: "The house is loaded with historical details." Door swings open; eye glitters in the shadows. VO: "Dog Eat Dog--And They Thought It Referred to Real Estate." [Music over: yike-yike-yike a'la 'Psycho' theme]

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at May 15, 2007 1:42 PM

It's not that close to Atlantic Yards, and it's very close to an adorable kernel of Prospect Heights. I think the interiors are pretty trashed though. It's a gut job, but the bones are good. The house is near the Q, B, Flatbush, Atlantic, Prospect Park, and Vanderbilt keeps getting better and better!

Posted by: Neighbor at May 15, 2007 1:43 PM

That's terrible about the man and the dogs! But who cares...what about the details?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 1:48 PM

Gee, Brownstoner, given your upbeat take on the situation, I'd really hate to see what you consider a sad backstory.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 1:53 PM

you know, there's an old thread on the dailyheights forum from about a year, year and a half ago, about this place (but you have to look it up, though). there are some photos of the sanitation guys carting out the rubbish and more info about the tenant/squatter.

Posted by: louke at May 15, 2007 2:04 PM

yes - why didn't you say

...sucker for a juicy back story...

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:04 PM

bloodsucker

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:05 PM

Wasn't this on the market through a different agency about a year ago? THere was one house on this block that needed a total gut. Does anyone know if they are one in the same?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:17 PM

Brenda--I'm loving it.

Posted by: carolyn at May 15, 2007 2:22 PM

So...you buy it (probably for under ask), gut it for $400,000 (looks like approx. 2,500 ft. living space?) and you've got a nice place for $1.3-1.5 mil. in a convenient part of PH. Problem is, you've probably got to pay cash unless you've got an extra mil stashed in the bank.

as for the dogs...sounds like a good ghost story to scare the kids into going to sleep.

Posted by: Peter at May 15, 2007 2:28 PM

why do you need to pay cash? Because it's a gut- you can't get a mortgage?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:31 PM

Real Tenant? according to WordNet, anyone who dwells in a place is a tenant.

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tenant

Posted by: tenant at May 15, 2007 2:32 PM

Funny how even at "only" 900k for the lot, and the bones, the renovation math doesn't work out.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:33 PM

here's the brooklynian thread about this place, including some posts by a family member of the person who lived there:

http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=53261

Posted by: z at May 15, 2007 2:34 PM

You can buy places on Carlton nearby that are habitable for 1.5MM.

This place has a ton of FAR supposedly, so this looks like a developer buys it, does a crappy expansion and 'reno' and then tries to sell 3-4 condo units at 800K each.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 2:36 PM

The house was owned by the guy (no mortgage) but only his dogs lived there. It was also full of years of accreted junk, Conyers brothers style. The doggies had the complete run of the place -- 9 pit bulls when the whole thing went down, more in past years. Over time, the neighbors sued and won in court but the owner did nothing to change his ways. It was only when he became ill and didn't show up to feed the lovely pups that people were finally able to get the attention of the authorities by calling FOX TV news. Until the cameras showed up, the cops and the ASPCA had refused to respond. One immediate neighbor reported having to wash her walls down with ammonia to combat the smell of dog urine and faeces coming through the party wall. This place would need a very expensive decontamination job before a renovation could even begin. All the plaster from the walls would probably have to go. The flooring too and even the beams. The house is truly a horror and only suited for someone deep pockets and a lot of know-how. Detail: the owner used to work as a waiter at Juniors. Hope to hell he washed his hands at the beginning of each shift.

Btw, the 1:42pm post isn't really accurate. There are apartment buildings on the north side of the street towards Carlton; a parking lot and several warehouse-loft style buildings that accomodate workshops, businesses and some residences towards Vanderbilt. No dumping on this block that I've ever seen. The AY danger is that these M1-zoned buildings could fall prey to deveopers eager to build multi-storey parking on the block to pick up demand from the arena.

Posted by: Anon at May 15, 2007 2:44 PM

Thanks for the correction. Whenever I've walked by at night, the lot looked empty, and there were always dudes hangin' around or parked oddly in the middle of the street-- thus the comment about loitering and dumping.

Posted by: 1:42 at May 15, 2007 3:00 PM

"Does anyone know the status of the Bergen St house? Will it be sold, fixed or demolished? From the rear, one can see that several of the windows are still missing and covered with flapping plastic. The quality of life of the immediate neighbors will continue to suffer until the house is completely cleaned up. If demolition sounds radical, what I'm really referring to is retaining the facade of the house but rebuilding everything else. The neighbors used to wash their walls down with ammonia to kill the smell so it's doubtful the basic fabric of the building could ever be properly salvaged."

So basically it is 900k for an empty lot, and a facade that (if retained) limits what you can do.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 3:05 PM

That's awful about the ASPCA not doing anything until the neighbors called the local news. Makes the Animal Planet TV show seem a bit of a "fluff piece" doesn't it?

Hey Brenda from Flatbush, there was a movie in development years ago at a major movie studio similar to what you proposed. A dark comedy about a bloodsucker couple who make a lot of money buying and flipping houses where murders took place. They buy the house from vulnerable, surviving family members at a lowball discount price then sell later at a big profit. Until they buy a house where the murderous ghosts are still in the house. The script never got made, but I read it back in the day.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 3:10 PM

OK, this wins the most revolting Brooklyn property award (in the under million dollar category).

Posted by: Serge at May 15, 2007 3:29 PM

Too bad they never made the movie about the 'Flippers from Hell.' Similar theme to that in 'Poltergeist,' where the developer was too cheap to move the bodies buried under the subdivision. And yes, the stench of an 'animal house' does require total gutting--I have it on authority of a friend in Calif. whose neighbor in a pricey cul-de-sac went nuts, kept a zillion dogs, and left the place reeking as far as Oregon. They had to tear out the (virtually new) walls and floors and ceilings down to the studs.

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at May 15, 2007 3:45 PM

A broker told me that she has seen over 700 brownstones in her career and this was the worst thing she had ever seen or smelled in her life. The person living there obviously was mentally ill and ignored the leaking roof hole until it became a gaping hole and there is a huge gaping hole in the flooring which completely rotted; you can be assured that if that level of water damage existed, you need to gut the place. Not to mention that that level of animal excrement is going to overwhelm every porous surface. You can't kill a fireplace and maybe you can save some of the staircase (railings etc) but you don't want details. I also think that you would need to have some kind of fung shui convention over there to rid the place of the bad energy, if in fact you could. I also heard that you had to sign a release just to see the place. Eww.

Posted by: donatella at May 15, 2007 4:05 PM

Nothing gets the smell of animal urine/feces out of walls and floors. Except demolition. So you'd have to decide how much smell is bearable, if you wanted to save any "detail". Or maybe you could just gut it and coat the support beams and interior of the facade in plastic, to create a "shield". Like they've been doing in Williamsburg when they decide to build on a site that has toxins in the soil: just cover the ground with a plastic sheet and build luxury condos on top.

I followed the thread on the Prospect Heights discussion board and was wondering when this house would go on the market. I wonder what happened to the owner.

Posted by: sylvia at May 15, 2007 4:34 PM

i once bought a house from the estate of 92-year-old with five cats. had to remove sections of kitchen floor linoleum to get rid of the urine smell, though it would come back anytime it was humid. finally put down new floor and figured i'd licked it forever...until plumber came to put in new stove and drilled through the floor to run the gas line.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 5:31 PM

I'm just wondering that if the partition wall between the houses are also damaged by dog urine or whatever, a buyer would have to take responsibility to fix neighbors' wall as well?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 5:50 PM

donatella - "feng shui convention" - i laughed out loud.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 6:03 PM

Let's see how hot the real estate market REALLY is. If this thing sells, it's really f-ing hot.

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 7:18 PM

I offered 850K for this house and it was rejected. It's not worth more than that.

Posted by: Bobby at May 15, 2007 8:03 PM

What's up with you folks? We all know that the last brownstone neighborhood where you can get a good deal is Bed-Stuy. It's not PLG as Brownstoner likes to picture it, it's not PH , not CH, it's not even SP as all these places start at 800k and SP doesn't have a reliable stock of Brownstones.For example, there was a perfectly nice brownstone featured last week for less than 700k with four levels in Bed Stuy. I am not convinced that all the people posting here can afford these 1.2 million and up homes, except of course if there is some nice equity from a condo in Manhattan. For all those others who are just starting out in the home buying game, I can only say that putting yourself into a million dollar mortgage just to be closer to the F train or L train is not the way to go if you want to keep your sanity or your looks (pulling out your hair coming up with $10,000 a month is no way to live and makes for a permanent bad hair day).
Buy a brownstone with good space and a backyard for a reasonable price in BS. Buy a bike or eco-friendly car with the change left over and start your journey.
Thank me in 5 years. And no, I am not a realtor serving BS. Just a native New Yorker who has seen alot over the years.

Posted by: Antoinne Roquetienne at May 15, 2007 9:10 PM

What's SP?

Posted by: Anonymous at May 15, 2007 9:47 PM

what railing details? the front railings are nearly gone and the whole place stinks to high heaven. and tons of holes in the floor.

total gut job and more!

Posted by: armchair_warrior at May 15, 2007 10:33 PM

Considering how sensitive to smell I am, they would have to pay me 900K to live in that house of crap & urine.

Posted by: joe at May 16, 2007 4:49 PM

FYI-Amazingly, the house does not smell of urine or fesces as there was not much security and the dogs ran in and out at will. The house has been sold. It is a solid, non-sagging structure w/many original features. The owner clearly had a problem with collecting. He also did live there which did contribute to his health problems. He was a brillant man, but as they say, there's a fine line between genius an insanity. No one was murdered in the house. The dog died of old age. Amazingly, none of the people posting, bidding or commenting on this site were able to find the family when help would or could have halted the situation, but were able to find the family once they thought they could make a buck on the property.

Posted by: Anonymous at July 10, 2007 12:51 PM

Ya'll sound like a flock of buzzards!

Posted by: Anonymous at July 17, 2007 7:53 PM

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