Real Estate

Bay Ridge Slee & Bryson Neo-Georgian Manse With Garage, Landscaped Grounds Asks $3.95 Million

The palatial neo-Georgian style house also has air conditioning, a wood-burning fireplace and copious early 20th century details such as fancy plasterwork.

Photo via The Corcoran Group

by Stephen Zacks

11/06/2019 5 minute 0

This palatial standalone early 20th century neo-Georgian style house in Bay Ridge puts us in mind of that American-born poet T.S. Eliot who returned to England to become a British subject. This seven-bedroom mansion designed by Slee & Bryson has copious prewar details, extensive landscaped grounds, central air and a garage.

The facade of 7600 Ridge Boulevard is brick with Palladian windows on the second story above the entrance, topped with a limestone “Adam” frieze (resembling that of the 18th century architect Robert Adam) portraying a wreathed urn and a pediment. The entrance below is covered with a pillared portico and Juliet balcony. The house’s windows are bookended with shutters, and there are two porches. A separated garage previously held a chauffeur’s quarters, according to the listing, and now serves as “guest quarters.”

Inside, the house has a center hall layout and large rooms. Some of the especially notable features of a house filled with them are the dining room, with its wood paneled walls topped by a row of carved floriate panels. The ceiling is detailed with patterned plaster, something we’ve occasionally seen in grand prewar apartments of the same era in Manhattan.

The living room also stands out with its wood-burning fireplace surrounded by a mantel with fluted pilasters that merge with the molding. French doors beside it lead to the sunroom, which is not pictured in the listing.

The understated white kitchen is updated if not too very recently. It has wood floors, white cabinets and counter, shelves on four walls, and enough room for a table in the middle.

Another gracious feature is the hall and staircase, with its attractive curling banister, white spindles mixed with neo-Classical motifs, and light diffused from a second-story landing situated on top of the sunroom. It’s carpeted with a peach-colored runner, shown here aligned with a row of wooden ducks.

The six or seven rooms on each of the top two floors have wood floors and, in some cases, charming floral wallpapers, including a particularly bright one with sloping eaves under the dormers of the third story. The third floor is accessed by a second staircase that spirals up through a secret door in the kitchen, which also leads to a doctor’s office in half of the basement. (Note: The doctor’s office likely means the property is mixed use, which could pose additional hurdles for a mortgage.) In the other half is a rec room, a boiler room and storage.

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Plans for 7600 Ridge Boulevard were filed in 1919, and the house was designed by Slee & Bryson for the George and Isabelle Helliesen family. Helliesen was a ship broker who immigrated from Norway in 1886 and married Brooklynite Isabelle in 1909. It was built for $35,000, or $519,454.62 in today’s dollars.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle pictured the house when it went up for sale in 1935. Public records show deeds for the property passed between members of the same family going back to 1966.

There’s an open house to go see for yourself on Thursday, November 7 from noon to 2 p.m., shown by reps Diane Henning and Jessica Buchman of Corcoran. The offering price: $3.95 million. Will it fly?

[Listing: 7600 Ridge Boulevard | Broker: Corcoran] GMAP