Face Off: Clinton Hill Archetypes

Read my comment on the other post on the cambridge pl house describing what warburg is up to … they are trying to get into the Brooklyn market by promising sellers extremely high prices that make corcoran look like a fire sale. Eventually they will lower the price … a little bit at a time

Grand Ave pricing seems about right. Layout is pretty awkward at best, which knocks it down. It will probably go for less, though. It seems harder to generate much interest in a less than (what seems to be) the “ideal” layout – either a double duplex (with owner on parlor and garden level and rental(s) above, or a owners triplex over a simplex garden rental. Cambridge Pl is much, much nicer place – totally pimped with the central a/c and all, but still, I’d guess, about $150-200K high. It’s VERY nice, but not exquisite. If it’s not a full 25 footer, forget about getting that close to $2M.

Well, the New York DOB thinks a house has a cellar and a basement. I don’t recall the exact definition — it has to do with how far below grade the floor is. A cellar is completely below street level.

And yes, of course, euphemisms have always been with us. Even when these houses sold for $30K, I’m sure some guy knew he could get more money renting out a “garden” than a “basement.” And got pissed off when anyone insisted on calling it a “basement apartment.”

Personally I don’t care what you call it, but Brownstoner is using a (if not THE) proper term. And I think that the poster who was all peeved at him for “insisting” on using the less genteel term doth protest too much.

Cellar and basement are not interchangeable. You will note that the Cambridge Place house has a cellar AND a garden level. Typically, the cellar is completely below ground and therefore cannot be used as living space, but houses mechanicals, and sometimes laundry and storage. The garden level — which is technically also a basement, because it is at least partially below ground — can be used as living space (though some houses also have mechanicals on this level).

While I think the Cambridge Place house is overpriced for the neighborhood, it does strike me as vastly superior to the Gates Avenue house. The location is better; there seems to be significantly more intact detail; the rental is on the garden level rather than the top floor; and the kitchen and at least one bath appear to have been recently and tastefully upgraded, while the Gates Avenue house doesn’t even show pictures of the kitchens and baths, and according to the floor plan has only one full bathroom in the owner’s triplex(on the third floor), a half bath on the parlor level and what looks like a quarter bath on the garden level. (Notice that the Corcoran listing significantly omits mention of how many bathrooms there are.) The Cambridge Place house also has central air conditioning, a deck from the parlor level to the garden, and tons of space for storage in the cellar, and its rental unit is on the garden level and includes its own washer and dryer.

Personally, I also prefer the configuration with the living/dining area and kitchen together, and the other floors devoted to bedrooms. The Gates Avenue house has the kitchen and living/dining area on the garden level, then a double parlor, and then a floor of bedrooms. My experience is that those double parlors end up being underused when they are separate from the kitchen. I think it works better to have the rental on the garden level, and then have the upper triplex arranged with the living/dining area and kitchen on the parlor level, and bedrooms on the upper two levels.