Condo/Co-op of the Day

Co-op in Former Brooklyn Heights Church With Fireplace, Private Terrace Asks $1.995 Million

With soaring ceilings, stained glass windows and multiple levels of living space this Brooklyn Heights apartment certainly doesn’t have a cookie-cutter interior.

by Susan De Vries

01/05/2021 4 minute 0

With soaring ceilings, stained glass windows and multiple levels of living space this Brooklyn Heights apartment certainly doesn’t have a cookie-cutter interior. The Gothic Revival style flourishes are thanks to its location inside a converted 19th century church at 99 Clinton Street.

The architect of the circa 1850 brownstone house of worship located in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District is unknown but the original congregation was founded in the 1830s and had a few homes in the area before the Clinton Street building was constructed.

There were also a series of name changes before it became known as Spencer Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1911. In later 20th century history, the Gay Alliance of Brooklyn, one of the first New York City gay civil rights groups outside of Manhattan according to a history by the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, was organized at the church in 1971 thanks to a welcoming minister. The church closed its doors in 1974 and by the end of the decade, the residential conversion of the building into Spencer Mews was featured in a New York Times piece about the co-op renaissance in Brooklyn Heights.

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This unit has a quirky but spacious layout. Thanks to the 23-foot high ceilings there are three levels fit into the roughly 2,500 square foot unit. There’s a vast central living space with a working fireplace, skylights, a dining nook and access to a private terrace. A virtual tour gives a better sense of the flow of the apartment.

A few steps up and you are in the kitchen, where there’s some original architectural elements, a trefoil window and exposed stone, along with a modern skylight. The finishes could perhaps use a style tweak but the light wood cabinets and tile floor all look in fine shape.

Up a few more steps and there’s another seating area, this one with an expanse of stained glass and more exposed stone.

There are two bedrooms — one of those is lofted with an adjacent full bath and a walk-in closet, while the other has skylights and two closets. There’s an additional windowless study that’s closed off with sliding doors. Next to it is the other full bath, not pictured but visible in the virtual tour, and a laundry room.

Maintenance for the unit is $3,500 a month.

This unit was featured as a Rental of the Day back in 2016 when it was asking $6,900 a month. It’s now on the market for $1.995 million and Richard Murray of Keller Williams has the listing. What do you think?

[Listing: 99 Clinton Street #9A | Broker: Keller Williams] GMAP