House of the Day: 135 Joralemon Street
The house at 135 Joralemon has been of great interest to Brooklyn Heights residents since it was ravaged by a fire on the eve of 2005. After sitting untouched for more than a year and a half, the house was finally purchased in September 2006 for $2,400,000. The buyer must have been a professional flipper…
The house at 135 Joralemon has been of great interest to Brooklyn Heights residents since it was ravaged by a fire on the eve of 2005. After sitting untouched for more than a year and a half, the house was finally purchased in September 2006 for $2,400,000. The buyer must have been a professional flipper because the house was reno’d and on the market by early this past summer (after being featured on the Brooklyn Heights House and Garden Tour in May). After more than three months of no takers, the price was cut last week from $5,950,000 to $5,750,000. It’s all still pie in the sky for most of the buyer universe; we suspect that it’s not a big enough reduction to make potential buyers sit up and take notice. What do you think this place is worth?
135 Joralemon Street [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Recovery Underway for Joralemon Burn Victim [Brownstoner]
Ode to 135 Joraleman [Brownstoner]
This house is worth every penny.
Zeebee’s comment confirms one of the concerns I had after looking at the BHS photos. It’s hard to tell online but I had my suspicions about the quality of the finishes — particularly the parlor floors and the kitchen cabinets. It’s so penny-wise and pound-foolish to undertake a high end renovation and then wimp out on the finishes. Really puts off the kind of buyers who can afford this kind of price.
I also saw this one on the BH House Tour – I remember loving the huge back garden (total blank slate) and the character of the house. I hated the kitchen and bathrooms. They were so generic, so cheap cabs-pro-style range-SubZero-tumbled marble, so boring and could be transplanted seamlessly to any random new condo development. I thought they did a real disservice to a historic and unique property like this. At House Tour time, the developer/restorer wanted $6 mil and was entertaining offers directly or through any broker you wanted to bring to him.
Will be interesting to track the sale price on this – through Corcoran and BHS alone, there are quite a few $4 mil-plus townhouses that have been sitting idle.
Um, no- you’re the only person that has ever been in a brownstone. What is wrong with a home evolving? Are you seriously so rigid that you don’t think that a room can be used for anything other than its original purpose? Why? These are houses not museums. If you read up you will find that many of the brownstones were altered by their early owners to suit the trends of the day. What you think is original may not be. Do you have a mix of Italianate, Second-Empire, Renaissance Revival? Would you know if your home had been changed 10 years after it was built, 20, 30? Incidentally- all garden levels do not have low ceilings.
2:55- Have you seen this house? It’s nice but it isn’t going to make anyone the center of attention.
cmu, have you ever been in a brownstone? The kitchen and dining are on the garden level, which has low ceilings. I know that some recently-arrived suburbanites like to destroy their homes and plop the kitchen on the parlor level, but that is not the way it is supposed to be. I bet you want a master bath with his and her sinks too. Hey, wahy not a 3 car garage too.
If I had the money (which I don’t)I still would not buy this place. This house is for someone (with money) who likes to be the center of attention.
I saw the house on the house tour, the rear is very attractive. there is a wooden porch with thin, 1830’s wooden columns, and a very large rear yard. An artistic landscaper could screen the views of the apartment houses next door with trellises or plantings.
This is a formal house, the parlors are upstairs and the kitchen and dining room are on the garden level. The house had never been broken up into a 2-family, so the layout remains as it always has been since it was built. The attic bedrooms are great with their dormer windows facing straight out to Sidney Place. There is a reason this house in in every picture book on Brooklyn architecture. It is a beauty.
Who says? There are 3 townhouses on Brown Harris Stevens that are listed for $4,400,000. They look pretty luxurious to me. I think that this house is priced a bit high. I’d put it just under 5.
2:14pm: The luxury house market in Brooklyn Heights means $5 million and above. Not $3 million and above. $3 million prices are often found in Park Slope, Cobble Hill, even Crown Heights. It’s a lot of money but it’s not in the luxury category. We were supposed to be discussing the luxury market of Brooklyn Heights, remember.