Real Estate

Two-Family Bed Stuy Brownstone With Mantels, Wainscoting Asks $1.85 Million

Originally built as a two-family home, this 1890s Bed Stuy brownstone has some period details, a working fireplace and a grape arbor for those who want to expand their horticultural expertise.

by Susan De Vries

05/26/2021 4 minute 0

Originally built as a two-family home, this 1890s Bed Stuy brownstone has some period details, a working fireplace and a grape arbor for those who want to expand their horticultural expertise.

Located within the National Register-eligible (but not listed) Stuyvesant East Historic District, 763 Hancock Street is typical of the more modest houses that speculative builders filled the area with in the 1880s and 1890s. This two-story house with rusticated bands of brownstone and a bracketed cornice ornamented with swags and garlands was completed by 1898. That year prolific builder Frederick B. Norris advertised it and and its neighbors as “splendidly built two-family brownstone houses” with hardwood finishes, 12-inch-thick walls and third-floor units that could bring in $25 a month in rent.

The house still has that top-floor rental with an owner’s duplex below. The relatively open-plan living, dining and kitchen are on the garden level and three bedrooms are above.

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Period details in the living room include wainscoting, moldings and a columned mantel, all painted white. The working fireplace has its original brass insert.

The kitchen, with wood cabinets and the stove set into the chimney stack, has views out to the rear yard and there is an adjacent half bath and a mud room.

Upstairs in the rental unit — which will be delivered vacant according to the listing — the bedroom and adjacent office space face the street while the open plan living and dining are at the rear. Wood floors throughout have been painted and there is a decorative mantel with original tile in the living room. There is also the bonus of in-unit laundry in the kitchen while the duplex has laundry in the basement.

A vine-draped pergola dominates the front of the paved rear garden while at the back raised wooden beds filled with perennials incorporate a corner bench. Some of the planter boxes look like they could use some TLC but there is plenty of room for gardening and there is another planting bed at the front of the house, behind the cast-iron fence.

The house hasn’t changed hands since the 1990s. Listed with Ban Leow and Howard Ramlal of Brown Harris Stevens, it is asking $1.85 million. What do you think?

[Listing: 763 Hancock Street | Broker: Brown Harris Stevens ] GMAP