Real Estate

Shingled House in Caton Park With Built-ins, Garage, Period Flavor Asks $2.8 Million

Original details give this circa 1906 home plenty of period character, and recent renovations make it especially functional.

by Stephen Zacks

08/07/2019 5 minute 0

A large shingled wood-frame Edwardian single-family house with gabled roof, large front porch, a private driveway and one-car garage, and front and back yards landscaped with stones and plantings is being sold by an estate in the micro-neighborhood of Caton Park. Details like original wood doors, built-in bookshelves, a breakfast nook and benches, stained glass, and a staircase with floriate ornamentation on the newel post give this circa 1906 home plenty of period character. The nicely renovated kitchen and bathrooms and central air make it especially functional and move-in ready.

The front porch has a bead board ceiling and enough room for a table and swing. Beyond is a spacious entry hall featuring wainscoting, a turned staircase with a landing, the aforementioned newel post with its foliate details, and an Art Nouveau-style stained glass window.

Views into the expansive double parlor and dining room are framed by pocket doors and plenty of woodwork with crown moldings. The double parlor has two sets of bay windows and a built-in bookcase.

The dining room has a standout high wooden mantel with carved, curving pilasters and foliate detail — and it has its original surround and cast iron insert. The dining room ceilings are coffered, and the wood trim is stained in this room to match the mantel, beams and a built-in china cabinet. A stained glass window has an urn motif.

The spacious l-shaped galley kitchen has been renovated with Shaker-style cabinets, white subway tile backsplash, dark stone countertops, stainless steel appliances, and tile floors. Off the kitchen is a large breakfast room with a built-in bench and counter. (Likely the kitchen was originally located in what is now the breakfast room, and a butler’s pantry was where the kitchen is now.)

A mudroom in back leads to a powder room and out to a stone paved backyard with a grassy lawn and mature bushes.

Upstairs on the second floor are four bedrooms, a bathroom, numerous closets, and a terrace off the hallway. Four more bedrooms and another bathroom are on the top floor. The bedrooms have all their original detail, such as hardwood floors, original doors and, in some cases, sloping ceilings.

The room in the gable facing the front has a built-in bookshelf along the length of the tripartite windows.

Both bathrooms are recently renovated and feature basketweave marble floor tile. One has a blue-black-tiled glass-enclosed shower, and the other has a white subway tile wainscot with an organic-modern-style stained wood vanity, mirrored cabinet and shelf.

Downstairs in the cellar, the area has been finished and furnished as a recreation room and laundry. There is also a powder room on this level.

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Caton Park is a small Flatbush neighborhood of 50 houses located between the Parade Ground and Church Avenue. 57 Marlborough Road is not in a landmark district, but the area has a neighborhood association. The New York Times notes that the novelist William Styron lived in the area and set the book that became a 1980s Meryl Streep vehicle, “Sophie’s Choice,” in the vicinity, but in the postwar years many houses were converted to boardinghouses. This one doesn’t seem to have suffered this fate.

Altogether the home is 3,500 square feet or so, not including the cellar, and it looks to be in outstanding condition inside and out. Listed by Rebekah Carver and Jared LaFrenais at Douglas Elliman, it’s asking $2.8 million. Is it a fair price?

[Listing: 57 Marlborough Road | Broker: Elliman] GMAP