Here's What Happened on Brownstoner This Week: Co-living In a Brownstone, Backyard Makeover, and More

Would You Co-live in Crown Heights?

Common, a Brooklyn-based co-living startup announced that they raised $7,350,000 in Series A funding this week. Common founder Brad Hargreaves told Brownstoner that their first locations will likely be in Crown Heights or Bed Stuy, and that classic Brooklyn brownstones “work exceptionally well for this model of individuals living together, for creating a community.”

One thing brownstones aren’t super great at? Air conditioning. Our most-commented post of the week answered the burning question: should you buy a mini split air conditioner?

If any of Common’s Bed Stuy co-livers need to beat the heat, they might try popping out to Toad Style, a new vegan restaurant poised to open at 93 Ralph Avenue. It looks pretty cool.

Swinging For The Fences

This Bed Stuy backyard makeover was a huge hit with readers. The homeowner worked with a general contractor to complete the redesign in only three weeks. Folks were so ga-ga for this backyard’s horizontal fence that we declared the week Horizontal Fence Week.

We posted readers’ horizontal fence pics, highlighted the patio fence in a Condo of the Day, and went all the way back to a fence from 2006. Even Friday’s sponsored listing featured a well-lit horizontal fence.

Seeing Green

Did you know that Brooklyn was once home to an abundance of marijuana farms? Before the 1950s, pot was grown pretty freely in the city. In the summer of ’51, downtown Brooklyn was home to an enormous field of pot. Brownstoner mapped a few other shocking photos of the borough’s high-minded history in Williamsburg, Boerum Hill, and Brownsville.

They may not grow pot, but there are still working farms in Brooklyn today. Operating with the help of some good old-fashioned ingenuity and the hard work of community volunteers, these five Brooklyn farms add something special to New York’s most populous borough.

The iconic Weir Greenhouse is getting a facelift in the near future. Green-Wood Cemetery released plans to turn it into a visitor center.

From Lush to Luxury

If you’re into a different kind of cultivation, you might appreciate this lavish Brooklyn Heights brownstone which includes original moldings, marble fireplaces, and four wine fridges. Or maybe Field Condition’s behind-the-scenes tour of the Brooklyn Trust Company bank-to-condos conversion would tickle your fancy.

And though beautifully-appointed, Jennifer Connelly’s former Park Slope mansion failed to set a record this week when it sold for a mere $12,400,000. Maybe because — as gorgeous as the house is — it’s also kind of creepy. A Brooklyn native once told Conan O’Brien: “Frankly, it was a little like Scooby-Doo, creepy, you know, like the haunted mountain mansion.”

The Curious Colonnade
In one of the oldest parts of Brooklyn are the remnants of a now mostly forgotten colonnade row — not the famous one in Brooklyn Heights but another one in what is now Williamsburg. In the 1830s, ’40s and ’50s, Greek Revival was the fashion, and all over the U.S. people were throwing up facsimiles of Greek temples, even if behind the impressive facades were perfectly ordinary, even humble rooms. An unknown builder here erected a row of houses on Humboldt Street — we can’t say exactly when or even how many — all with tall Doric columns running two stories, from rooftop to porch, over a low basement.

In other historic building news: the Brooklyn Lyceum will become a Blink Fitness, and two rambling Victorians in Flatbush will soon be replaced by a shiny apartment building.