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 is a really unique house and Sydney Place is one of the nicest streets in the entire City. Earlier poster mentioned another property at Hicks + Joralemon. Hicks is a traffic nightmare and totally congested in the AM. It’s a honkfest. I would pay a premium to live on one of the places (i.e. Garden or Sydney) because they are so peaceful. Would be interested to know what the garden is like though. The house is sandwiched between some taller buildings.
As far as these properties flying off the shelf, just go look at the NYT listings for properties in the $3 million+ range in Brooklyn: http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/NY/BROOKLYN_County/Brooklyn_Heights_Dumbo_Cobble_Hill
You’ll see at least ten BH brownstones priced at $4 million+ that have been on the market for six weeks or more. I can’t see how this guy expects to get $5.75 million for a place this small.
Couldn’t pay me enough to live in that ossified museum.
Let’s see, some design stupidities: a kitchen with low ceilings, too large for comfort but too small to dine or congregate in; the impracticality of having the kitchen a floor below living area, (I’d have to hire a cook…come to think of, maybe the megarich do;) three closet-less bedrooms sharing a bath too small for a catbox; etc.
Total waste of resources.
What did it look like after the fire?
They’re “flying off the shelf”? Evidence, please — and a random article from the NYT, based on research done long before the market turmoil of the past few weeks, does not count.
I used to live in the Heights and walked past this house in poor condition, pre-fire , for years. I am glad that this house was restored. The prioce is another story . .
Intersestingly I picked up a book titled Renovation from the 1980’s and the leading photo was this house, saying this type of project is not for the faint of heart.
Sorry, 2:00pm, but the wood frame comment is totally subjective. I agree with Sam: many people would pay a premium for an anti-bellum wood frame house.
From all the evidence out there, the luxury market is not the one in trouble. This seller won’t have to discount this house. Those high-end properties (which would include this one for its location and its top of the line renovation) are flying off the shelf. They’re selling. Anybody see the piece in the NY Times recently about wealthy New Yorkers being so eager to stay in the city AND have lots of space that they are buying 3 Manhattan condos and combining them? THAT’s expensive. This house is a bargain compared to having to do that just to get 4 or more bedrooms in NYC.
You can’t compare the $1 to 2 million brownstone market in the up and coming neighborhoods, to the luxury properties of Brooklyn Heights. They’re two different worlds completely, with totally different buyers. People who spend several million to buy a house in Brooklyn Heights don’t even look in the other neighborhoods, much less buy there. These are people who fully expect to spend this amount of money. I’m not the realtor here! Just someone who pays attention to the RE news.
Even though it’s cute and in a pretty good location, it’s a wood frame and kind of small for an asking of almost $6 million.
I think you can get a bigger brownstone on the corner of Hicks and Joralemon for $4.5 million that’s still on the market.
There are several homes for sale in Brooklyn Heights that are in the $4-8 million range. I don’t think that any of them have sold in months.
I love the house too but agree that the kitchen is not what one would expect to see in a house of this price.