House of the Day Flatbush

Jazz-Age Flatbush House With Period Charm, Parking Asks $2.1 Million

This roomy single-family boasts a new kitchen and period details like parquet floors, wainscoting, and a brick mantel.

flatbush - living room with brick mantel, columns, parquet floor

Photo via Serhant

by Susan De Vries

06/02/2025 0

With early 20th century character inside and out, this single-family in Flatbush offers an updated kitchen along with a driveway and garage. The brick house at 216 East 21st Street also has a generous amount of bedroom space.

It’s one of a pair of semi-detached houses, and the design of the dwellings was perhaps inspired by a neighboring development. The brick houses sit across the street from, but not within, the Albemarle-Kenmore Terraces Historic District. The neo-Federal houses within the district were designed by architects Slee & Bryson and completed between 1916 and 1917 for developer Mabel Bull.

While these two houses share some similar architectural vocabulary, they were constructed a bit later, in 1921, for owner Gregory Weinstein and designed by architects Silverstein & Infanger. The houses were advertised in 1922, as 216 and 220 Kenmore Place, as each having nine rooms, front and rear porches, and brick garages. Weinstein ultimately appears to have hung on to his investment instead as he lived at No. 216 with wife Eugenia until his death in 1953. He also maintained ownership of No. 220 into at least the 1940s, according to an i-card for the house.

No. 216 last sold in 2016, and an old listing shows that a renovation after the sale kept details like a brick mantel, parquet floors, stair, wainscoting, and columned doorway, while updating the kitchen and creating an expanded mudroom. The baths — one each on the two bedroom floors — are not shown.

On the main level, the interior entry door appears of the period, and fluted columns support a wide doorway between the stair hall and the living room.

The latter’s bay window overlooks the front patio, and the aforementioned brick mantel is now painted a creamy white. The living room, like many in the house, has two exposures.

In the dining room beyond, the wainscoting, plate shelf, walls, and ceiling have all been painted a moody green. A set of French doors leads to the mudroom while another door opens into the kitchen.

It is light and bright in the kitchen, with two exposures, white upper and wood lower cabinets, and a white apron sink. Period-appropriate white subway tile forms a high wainscot, while the floor is covered in black and white tile.

On the second level, a sleeping porch reachable via another bedroom faces the rear yard — a configuration that was fairly typical for the time. Another bedroom faces the street, and all three rooms are generously sized.

On the third floor are three more bedrooms, two on the smaller side and a third, larger bedroom facing the street.

In addition to a bit of garden space in the front and the patio, which has room for planters and seating, there is a rear yard. The listing photo shows it as a bit of a blank canvas comprising an expanse of mulch and a large tree — perhaps with potential for an owner with a green thumb.

Other updates to the house since 2016 include a whole house electrical upgrade, a new roof, and new windows. The water main was also replaced and the sewage line inspected, according to the broker. Listing photos show baseboard heating.

Listed by Jeffrey St. Arromand and Tricia Lee of Serhant, the house is priced at $2.1 million. What do you think?

[Listing: 216 East 21st Street | Broker: Serhant] GMAP