Real Estate

Spacious Cobble Hill Italianate Owned by Photographer Charles Harbutt Asks $4.995 Million

The house has a wide 25-foot street front and historic details — promising, despite a possible need for renovation.

by Stephen Zacks

11/19/2018 3 minute 0

The three-story landmarked 1850s brick townhouse at 190 Warren Street belonged to the late Magnum photographer Charles Harbutt, who covered, among other things, the Cuban revolution, and whose photos illustrate the 1969 Plan for New York City. Landmarked in 1970 as a part of the Cobble Hill Historic District, the house has a wide 25-foot street front and details — promising, despite the possible need for renovation.

It’s part of a row of eight Italianates erected in 1853-55 for William W. Petit and Edmund B. Shotwell, with bracketed pediments above the doorway and first floor windows, bracketed cornices, and rusticated basements with segmental-arched windows on the basement level and on the third floor. Updates on No. 202 were the only substantial alterations along the preserved block before the designation passed, apart from painting of the brick on this and several others.

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The house is a two-family and set up as an owner’s triplex over a one-bedroom rental apartment. Interior details include foliate crown moldings in the parlor, Greek Revival ear moldings, and original stair newel posts.

What is shown appears to be in good condition, if in need of perhaps a little new paint or floor refinishing. The listing notes a spacious backyard, slightly wild with growth, and we see a particularly bright and aged green carpet from another age on the stairway, along with a tin ceiling that could use some touching up, and a mixture of parquet and wood plank floors.

None of the kitchens or bathrooms are pictured. The owner’s kitchen is in the rear of the parlor floor, a popular contemporary configuration, with steps leading down to the garden. There are only two bathrooms in the house, one for each apartment, but plenty of space to add another on the top floor or convert adjacent small rooms into en suite baths.

Notably, images from Warren Street figure among the historical works highlighted by Harbutt’s dealer, Peter Fetterman Gallery (see slide number 3), as well as a 1962 Brooklyn Heights street scene.

The building, which has been in the Harbutt family since 1977, is being offered by Ravi Kantha of Leslie J. Garfield for $4.995 million. Will the price hold up?

[Listing: 190 Warren Street | Broker: Leslie J. Garfield] GMAP