Real Estate

Duplex in Heights Greek Revival With Mantels, Laundry, Private Garden Asks $12,000 a Month

This duplex in an early 19th century Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival is elegant and historic, as well as primely located, with a price to match.

by Susan De Vries

05/21/2020 4 minute 0

This duplex in an early 19th century Brooklyn Heights Greek Revival is elegant and historic, as well as primely located, with a price to match.

Unit No. 1 at 164 Hicks Street in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District has original details, modern upgrades and comes fully furnished. A temporary rental, it is available for stays ranging from 30 days to one year.

The house dates to circa 1839, and its original Greek Revival style has had some alterations over the years, both inside and out. It got a modern makeover in 1946, when new owners Albert and Marion Coleman transformed the interior after finding that the “mid-Victorian decor harbored melancholia,” according to a profile of the remodel in the Brooklyn Eagle. Four separate apartments were created and out went went brown walls and mustard colored ceilings and in came new kitchens, cheery wallpapers and bookshelves on either side of the “old but beautiful fireplaces.” The Colemans took the parlor level unit for themselves, building closets into the corners of the bedroom, adding a bathroom and combining the former butler’s pantry and dumbwaiter spaces into a modern kitchen.

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The Coleman’s four-family house is now a three-family, and the apartment for rent includes their former parlor unit and the garden level below. The living and dining rooms show bits of the layered history of the house, with high ceilings, pocket doors, Greek Revival ear moldings around the windows and early 20th century wall moldings. There are still bookshelves on either side of the wood burning fireplace in the living room.

Open to the dining room is a galley kitchen with white cabinets, a black counter that looks like soapstone and a skylight. There’s a bedroom with a wall of storage and built-in desk and a full bath to round off the parlor level.

Below are two more bedrooms, both with built-in shelving; a laundry room; and a full bath with vintage fixtures.

Out back there’s a fenced-in, private rear garden with paving, shrubbery and some planting beds.

The house has been in the same family for decades and previous listings show the unit has been available as a fully furnished, short-term rental since at least 2018, when it was asking $10,000 a month. Now listed by Samuel Pollach of Compass, it’s asking $12,000. What do you think?

[Listing: 164 Hicks Street, #1 | Broker: Compass] GMAP