House of the Day: 465 Clinton Avenue
We’re in love! This limestone Clinton Avenue mansion is just a few blocks from Brownstoner HQ so we get to pass by almost everyday. Until we checked out the listing, however, we’d never seen the interior. While we wish there were more pics, the two shots of the inside reveal some truly killer woodwork. Because…
We’re in love! This limestone Clinton Avenue mansion is just a few blocks from Brownstoner HQ so we get to pass by almost everyday. Until we checked out the listing, however, we’d never seen the interior. While we wish there were more pics, the two shots of the inside reveal some truly killer woodwork. Because this is a corner house, it was able to be built out on the entire lot, resulting in 6,300 square feet of living space plus a two-car garage. This results in the property’s only downside as far as we can see: The lack of a real backyard. With a price tag of $2.5 million, the big question is whether someone will step up to convert the 12 existing units back into an owner-occupied two-family or whether this has condo conversion written all over it.
465 Clinton Avenue [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
I see,
It is a twelve-singles building, not a twelve-family building.
I guess it must have been a monastery.
Honestly, I get such a laugh out of some of the postings.
LOL!!!!
Anon 12:46,
right, and what do you do with the renters?
According to the HPD violation, this building has been always rental at least since 1986 or possibly before, as they got a landmark sticker in ’83. And once seized by city?
why does everyone keep saying 12 families. while there may be 12 units, this does not imply that all are families.
i suppose it’s neither here nor there, but it does sound far more dramatic to say that 12 families live there instead of 12 singles.
even at 1.5 million in renovation, this house as a 1 family for 4 million would be a STEAL.
check out curbed.com
there’s a townhouse downtown in manhattan going for something like 20 million dollars that is similar in grandeur to this one.
even let’s say 5 million total for someone who would restore it completely back to its original one family status would be a deal for what you’re getting…
Spectacular house, but way too much work to bring it back to glory, imagine just eliminating all the plumbing from the baths and Kitchens??? good luck looks like a developer opportunity.
I agree that its lovely on the ourside, but twelve families? That’s as many as moved into Doctor Zhivago’s mansion after the revolution (in the novel).
There are some units that are empty so that’s a plus, but it is difficult to run a nice building with too many rental tenants. Their priorities are the opposite of the buyers. They do not want improvements that will raise their rent and the buyers will want to make improvements to protect and enhance their investment. It is a bad dynamic, I’ve been there.
I’m working on one of these old ex-SROs now, though thankfully without the tenants attached, and it is VERY expensive to bring them back to original grandeur, even if a lot of the original details are intact. We went back to the original building plans of the house to determine what the partitions had been before being chopped up. It’s a huge pain in the ass for any contractor, and I’d say it’s more like 300 to 350 a square foot just to replace all MEP and put in some decent finishes (ie restore woodwork, etc).
So what do you do with the five tenants? Do you work around them? buy them out? seems complicated. On top of the fact that places like this — old & grand, not to be gutted — require around $250 a sq foot minimum to rehabilitate. Thats at least another 1.5 mill NOT including buying out the tenants.