House of the Day: 329 Adelphi Street Reduced
The beautiful but crumbling wood frame house at 329 Adelphi Street has a new broker and a new price tag. The shingled corner house started out asking $950,000 last May. According to a few people we know who’ve now been inside, though, it needs so much work that that price was unrealistic. The new asking…
The beautiful but crumbling wood frame house at 329 Adelphi Street has a new broker and a new price tag. The shingled corner house started out asking $950,000 last May. According to a few people we know who’ve now been inside, though, it needs so much work that that price was unrealistic. The new asking price of $795,000 is still more than the pricing widget called for last go-round, which normally wouldn’t be an issue given the widget’s track record of underpricing by 15 percent or so. In this case, though, we suspect the masses may have some wisdom: An architect we know said you’re looking at a million bucks of work here.
329 Adelphi Street [Ahrlty.com] GMAP P*Shark
House of the Day: 329 Adelphi Street [Brownstoner]
Nokilissa,
Where have you been? Have you’all decided to “wait it out” or are you still actively looking? You didn’t buy a house in Brooklyn as yet, have you? Just cooling your jets in Manhattan for now I’d imagine…
Brenda,
Woody and Dan were that romantic couple of whom you speak! I know what you mean about having “a jones” (forgive me, but is that supposed to be a vulgar term?) for cute, shingly, clapboardy, picturesque houses (even though I keep wondering what it would be like to live in a moderne house). This house could be so cute I almost cringe at the thought! Can you imagine if it could be done in a great set of colors (most importatn), and even have shutters and window boxes, nice cottage gardeny around the two sides, climbing roses or a pretty grapevine?!!! Ugh! I’m dying! I wonder if Landmarks would disallow the house being switched back to clapboard (it probably was originally) which might be less Cape Coddy and more Federal which might “work†better–and if they’d allow dormers which would make the top floor rooms more usable.
Minard,
I have to say I agree quite a bit with your comments. I can’t…simply cannot…imagine the need to spend $1 million on this house to fix it up…such an absurd notion.
And the appliances and tile wouldn’t have to be *that* bad. You seem to envision the cheapest stuff out there…but I don’t think you’d have to cut costs down to the worst bargain basement Home Depot junk. You wouldn’t need a million dollar Aga (which would have to be in the “English basement in this house!) or a $7,000 semi-restaurant stove but you might not have to go with a super cheapo new stove either. You might find a great 40s or 50s stove. We have one…and it WAS cheap…and works very well (okay, it was my aunt’s)…much better made and more heavy duty than what’s generally made these days and it has a wonderful look of course). You can also do a lot with not too expensive tiles. Much of “it” is about taste and restraint. Very simple tiles can look great when done well. Floors might be cork or linoleum which might be more appropriate in small frame house that may shift a lot. Stone floors in a kitchen in this house would be horrid.
Maly,
Trust me, depending on where you are in New England there are a ton of regulations–materials aren’t so cheap anywhere (unless you build with adobe, cob, earthen bricks made on site…even milling local trees takes a lot of work and money—according to friends who used trees on their property to build their house. Unless you’re the superduper woodworker who knows and wants to do all that work, it costs, and costs and costs).
I’ll grant you there’re some savings with filings, fewer hold-ups along the way and labor is cheaper in many places outside NYC…it just depends on where you are. Some parts of Upstate NY are super cheap, yes. Parts of New England are as expensive as NYC to get things done it seems. And, not to go off too much on a tangent, but surprisingly, with the cost of housing taken out of the equation, the cost of living in many places outside NYC can be quite high, if not higher than in NYC where you can live without a car, and can find all sorts of bargains. Shopping for specialty food in the stix can be surprisingly expensive in certain enclaves. Try shopping for food on the East End or regular supermarket shopping on the Cape!
Anyway, the lead paint issues you have to go through with shingling…all the regulations where our house is can get complicated. And, frankly, all the houses around have lead paint on them it seems…there’s a very brisk industry dealing with all the regulations!
Plus, we went with the local top-of-the-line contractor: perfect new shingling, incredible paint removal (they really improved old exterior details), filling, top-of-the-line oil primer and paint, copper this, that and the other. Not exactly cheap. And again, the materials were probably as costly as anywhere.
The thing you get in some places in New England is expert Yankee craftsmanship. S-o-m-e-t-i-m-e-s you might, might just get very good craftsmanship in NYC out of a contractor…but you have to pay through the nose ten times for it…and basically wait around for the guy to be available.
In certain places in New England you can find great craftspeople, woodworkers, painters, etc…maybe not considered “cheap” locally, but cheaper than anything comparable in NYC. Yes. But, your idea that things are a breeze in New England is off-base. There are many VERY touchy historic districts where we are and New England is famous for historic preservation so don’t think it’s all that easy outside NYC!
But, back to the point: I’m not so sure why Woody and Dan’s house cannot be done in a “keep it simple” renovation…are the floors falling in at this point? I’m not sure. And even then…does it have to be super perfect or can it be a little bit low key? Does it only make sense as a purchase and a renovation if the new owners wind up with a complete jewel box of a house? Are those today’s expectations?
You run new electrical cables (not the worst job to do since they can snake a lot through the walls), the radiators may be fine (the pipes just need to be dealt with to fix any leaks)…new furnace and rebuilt the chimney if needed. You have a window restorer (okay, not cheap…we spend more on restored windows than on new ones!) to work on the most urgent windows, and get storm windows which Landmarks does not prohibit and can be installed without Landmarks review. Aren’t there double glazed storms now? The garden and front border are not that bad and do not need professional work. They’re ripe for a do-it-yourself gardener. Skim the walls after the electrical is run and patched and a
this is ridiculous. there is nothing to rescue here but the walls. This should be in a new category “shell of the day”.
Oh…oh…[Meg Ryan table-pounding noises from “I’ll have what she’s having” scene]…OHHHHH!
It is my dream house…which is to say, a smaller version of our house. And you could get it sweet and habitable for $300K; we could do it for less (by living in a semi-habitable pit for 20 years, but I digress). You either have a jones for these ancient little wooden houses, or you don’t.
But the sad part is, this should be an opportunity for some nice, insane, deluded young couple or brave loner to take on a nearly-free wreck and rescue it with sweat equity. See? By nearly free, these days, we might mean, oh, $250K, given its location. That is the romance, people–the idea that the poor little old wreck could be saved with heroic love and every penny you have. Not that you pay half a million just to start. No wonder folks suggest tearing it down (or, most cruelly, burning it down). Crazy little places like this used to be the cracks in the city’s armor where us bottom-feeders could slip in. But no more, not even in the so-called ‘soft’ market. That seems a shame. Thank God for landmarking, so at least it will have to be rescued in defiance of common sense.
“Is there really anything wrong with this house that can’t be fixed with a can of gasoline and a book of matches?”
My nominee for best comment on this thread.
archi-
second to last sentence sums up just just about the whole opinion making business on this site.
that said i hunt for the needles in the proverbial haystacks and find just enuf to keep coming back…
elided, i might plagiarize the line for my own comments.
Sounds nice, Dave. I hope someone rescues the house and does it right.
Ok, I’ll take the bait Ty. If you read the ENTIRE post, you’ll see that I never said it should cost a million, just that $350 was probably too low for a house that needs this much work. Truth probably somewhere in the middle. Someone needs to take a hard look at it, come back with some real info, and until then no way to know. What could be perceived as crazy is being so darn certain one is right when they have about 5% of the data. That’s it.
slope…I had rubble infill in my Bucks County house which we removed and then spray foamed. This looks to add structural integrity though it is not great as insulation.
What I would have done here was fer out the walls another 4″ and then did spray foam giving you not only really great insulation but also that early 1800s look of deep silled windows. This house was built around 1830.
DIBS,
Not that you are buying this house, but your comment about the brick infill reminded me that, where we opened exterior walls in our frame house, our architect ahd us remove teh infill. Sometimes the infill is reall a wall and part of teh support. Other times, as in the case of our front and rear walls, it was put in loosely as 19th century insulation. Our architect was adamant about getting the excess weight off of the framing of those exterior walls. So, depending on what you saw, the infill may reveal structural strength at the Adelphi house, or it may actually be causing stress. Just a thought.