70 Lefferts Place Now a Hostel

It’s been a rough few years for 70 Lefferts Place, or, more precisely, the developer who’s owned it for the last four and a half years. To refresh, the house traded for $2,400,000 in May 2006 and soon thereafter plans were announced to tear down the Civil War-era gem. A last-minute effort to landmark the house ended up being successful, with the designation being finalized in December 2006. Within a month, the property was back on the market. It never sold, though, and in April 2009 a Lis Pendens (the first step in the foreclosure process) was filed, revealing that the owner was on the hook for a $2,010,000 loan. We hadn’t heard much about the property since then until a few days ago when a neighbor brought this online listing for a hostel to our attention. According to the website, for $25 a night, you can have a spot in one of the many bunkbeds. The only problem is that this place doesn’t have a C of O for a hotel or even a rooming house, as far as we can tell. We also bet that the lenders would be curious to know how much the owner is renting out the place to the hostel operators for.