House of the Day: Wistful for Willow Street
Even though we can’t get enough of the Italiate details in our house, there’s something particularly pleasing about the older and rarer Greek Revival houses that are found mostly in Brooklyn Heights. This Willow Street house, the former home of Henry Ward Beecher, was built in 1840 and recently underwent a high-end renovation that appears…
Even though we can’t get enough of the Italiate details in our house, there’s something particularly pleasing about the older and rarer Greek Revival houses that are found mostly in Brooklyn Heights. This Willow Street house, the former home of Henry Ward Beecher, was built in 1840 and recently underwent a high-end renovation that appears to have added modern conveniences like central air and modern kitchen appliances while preserving the original architectural details. Given the location (Willow Street), the size (5 stories) and the condition (pristine), this doesn’t seem like a stretch at $4.2 million. Obviously, that’s a boatload of moolah no matter how you slice it, but this house appears to be the real deal and, at a quarter of the price of this house, a relative bargain.
Willow Street House [Corcoran] GMAP
I may not be the first, but the value of this house is it’s historical signicance not whether it has a 300 footprint or whatever. The rest of these comments are just silly.
Property Shark has it at 42′ deep
30 feet or so deep is just unacceptable to me, not for over 4 sticks! no way
I live around the block from this house. It is beautiful on Willow Street and this particular house is in a charming row of houses. It has the restrained elegance of the Greek Revival period. And it is priced correctly because a home of similar size sold for $4.3 mln down the street about 6 months ago and another one is on the market for $4.5 mln.
As for layout, in this price range, a 2-family configuration does not detract because it can easily be converted to a 1-family if desired. Some people, even in this price range, like to have the rental income as well as have somebody on-site when they leave for vacations (i.e., there’s always someone there to keep an eye on things).
I always have problems seeing brownstones of this size but stuck with such an awkward kitchen layout (5’Wx22’L). I’m a big believer in proportion, and this house just doesn’t have it. It might have had it at one point when it was still single family, but now with the rental setup, it has really lost the essense and grandeur of a house.
the garden floor is a rental
BUT LOOK HOW SMALL IT IS!! The floorplan is fuzzy but it looks only about 32 deep!!!! Yuck.
I’m pretty sure for $4.2 million, the fifth floor studio with skylight is probably an art studio, not a rental!
Wistful is right…sigh…if I had the big bucks, I could go for a house like that. The house’s exterior house is so evocative of another time. Just beautiful. Even though there are only 3 pix posted, I’m sure the remainder of the house is spectacular.