House of the Day: 19 Cheever Place
19 Cheever Place was on the market briefly this summer with a local broker before making the leap to Corcoran back in October. The Cobble Hill two-family house is missing a cornice but the interior has some nice original detail as well as an attractively renovated kitchen. The asking price is $2,275,000. What do you…

19 Cheever Place was on the market briefly this summer with a local broker before making the leap to Corcoran back in October. The Cobble Hill two-family house is missing a cornice but the interior has some nice original detail as well as an attractively renovated kitchen. The asking price is $2,275,000. What do you make of that?
19 Cheever Place [Corcoran] GMAP P*Shark
Always question when the Cocorean group uses words like “original detail” it usually means it is so antique and old that it has never been updated since the early 1900’s. I don’t think now is the time that people have soo much money to through away on pet projects like this. During the housing bubble you would have found plenty of loonies for something like this because the banks gave loans to anyone with a pulse. Now, try walking into a bank and asking for a loan for something like this!
Now that you mention it, our place has a fairly typical brownstone setup. The kitchen is in the rear of the first floor, as you would expect. Family dining room used to be in the front, of course, but we’re using that as a business. Plan to make the half double parlor into the dining room — it’s on a different floor. There was a dumbwaiter, but it was turned into a closet.
Now, I don’t know what kind of problems we will run into with this setup, but the kitchen is gigantic — 15 x 12. It can easily accommodate a kitchen table and more. So I figure if we have parties, people can gather round there for the cooking part or whatever. Then we’ll all decamp to the dining room, where hopefully the food will not be ruined by the trip up the stairs. And of course we’ll have our breakfast and such in the kitchen. LOL — when we have a floor and walls.
Cgar, checking email!
Wait a sec, Minard, a brownstone does NOT have a 1920s floor plan! LOL.
Minard, if you like the brownstones that turn the rear parlor into a kitchen, check out the house that belongs to ex-eic of Cookie mag Pilar Guzman in “Restoring a House in the City.” Gorgeous! BBW built a kitchen island out of reclaimed wood and lined the existing cabinets opposite the fireplace with subway tile and black grout. Looks amazing. (Of course photos left out fridge.) I’m sure it cost a small fortune.
The first-floor apartment is also genius with its placement of the kitchen running along the side wall, so as to free up both the rear and front rooms to use as bedroom and LR/DR. I think it’s even smarter than the bigger parlor kitchen.
They do kind of end up with lots of vestigial parlors though. Funny.
nh is right. the remuddled configuration of this house is very bad.
the more i look at it the more problems i see. it needs a lot of work.
What I meant about the stairs in this house is this:
You climb the stoop, you go through the front door, then you have to climb up the stairs (right picture above) to go to the second floor, just to get into the owner’s unit.
They label it as the “parlor floor” but it’s not the same as a traditional townhouse layout where you just climb the stoop to get to the parlor floor.
It’s a walk-up apartment in your own house. That’s why I don’t think it’s as valulable as other houses at the same asking price.
MOPAR!! I emailed you about Bell House.
“Most people do not feel a need any longer to really restore the exterior of their houses. A shame. I guess it is the cost of everything else”
Amen to that Minard. Facade work can be cost prohibitive especially on a landmark block. Do you know the name or have any reference for the flexible duct system you describe for central air?
Thanks mopar but it’s funny how you think everything flows in a 1920’s floor plan…trop drole :)) To us such plans feel very restrictive in a brownstone where you only have windows in the front and back (except for a corner house). But it’s all about personal taste right?
Placing pocket doors between the kitchen and dining / living area should be a good compromise that way you can open up the space as needed…hey a good suction hood over the stove range helps to keep smells at a minimum.
Pierre, I do not like open floor plans. I think kitchens look very ugly in living rooms. And in the case of small apartments, it is nice to have kitchen doors that close, so the smells don’t get into the other rooms.
I like the 1920s floor plans the best. They usually have a large-ish kitchen with two doors and relate well to the living room and dining room, so everything flows and there are plenty of windows.
Another problem with the open floor plans, at least in the burbs, is you get vestigial living rooms and dining rooms that nobody uses.