Brownstones
December 17, 2007
Living in a Cobble Hill Townhouse/Time Capsule
Talk about old-school. According to the cover story in this weekend's City section, the house at 312 Clinton Street in Cobble Hill has been in the same family for five generations, and it's filled with mementos ("collections of bottled fainting remedies, thigh-high men’s socks, and mint-green sales slips for coal") and obsolete appliances, like an Easy brand washing machine built around 1940. The house was purchased in 1866 by the great-great-great-grandmother of its current resident, Nora Geraghty. Geraghty says the house's collection of antiques and lack of some modern amenities have occasionally made her feel like she couldn't "live a modern, normal life," but that the way it connects her to her family's past ultimately justifies the clutter and lack of some mod cons. “The way I feel about my great-great-grandmother,” says Geraghty, “my great-great-grandchildren will feel about me, unless New York is gone by the time they’re born. Because in a thousand years, this place will never be sold.” Are there readers who have been living in the same house as their ancestors and can relate to Geraghty's reluctance to change her property?
The Ghosts of Clinton Street [NY Times]
Photo of 312 Clinton by Kate Leonova for Property Shark.
December 10, 2007
Why Townhouses Are Priced at a Discount
Between 1997 and 2006, townhouses in Manhattan appreciated at a slightly slower rate than condominiums, according to Radar Logic. The reason, according to The New York Times, is basically that a house is a hell of a lot more work than an apartment.
“You hate when you come home from a trip with a lot of luggage and have to drag it up the stairs, or you’re in a huge hurry to leave and you have to run back up to the third or fourth floor dressed up in high-heeled shoes because you’ve forgotten something,” said Barbara Fox, president of Fox Residential Group, who lived for two decades with her husband, James Freund, in a 7,000-square-foot town house on West 73rd Street near Central Park. “And you hate when you have to have repairs because there’s always got to be somebody there to answer the door.”
So, townhouse dwellers, what are your greatest gripes about non-doormaned, vertical living?
Town House Living: The Untold Story [NY Times]
Photo by Littlekim