House of the Day: 501 Montgomery Street
This detached townhouse at 501 Montgomery Street in Crown Heights just hit the market asking—brace yourself—$1,485,000. The house is quite large (23 by 70 feet) and has a whopping nine bedrooms. It’s also been recently renovated with results that make for interesting viewing. 501 Montgomery Place [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
This detached townhouse at 501 Montgomery Street in Crown Heights just hit the market asking—brace yourself—$1,485,000. The house is quite large (23 by 70 feet) and has a whopping nine bedrooms. It’s also been recently renovated with results that make for interesting viewing.
501 Montgomery Place [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
If they were only willing to sell it to someone in the Hasidic community, I doubt they’d list it with BHS.
I cannot believe that BHS would allow such blatant steering in the wording of this ad, but, yes, the surrounding neighborhood is almost exclusively Lubavitcher. Rooms on the English basement level also can’t be called bedrooms, according to NYC code, and no tubs down there either. Note also that there’s a lot of FAR to spare; Michael Cetera, an architect who’s also the land use committee chair of CB9, specializes in expanding houses of this sort for the local clientele (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/garden/remodeling-answering-to-a-higher-authority.html). Surprised to see it with a “name” broker, however; usually these houses sell for well below this figure (officially) to avoid transfer taxes.
even tho part of me feels that people should be allowed to sell something that they own to whomever they choose whether it’s discriminatory or not.
like for instance, i would never sell my video game collection to anyone under 30. that’s my right.
*rob*
i still think it’s disciminatory and would not fly if it had coded language trying to sell it to any other group.
*rob*
There was a fire in this house about a year and a half ago. I remember seeing the furniture dragged outside and the burnt windows.
ah! also, on that caroll street house i went to see…many houses there started out asking proposterous prices (like this house of the day!) and were slashed severely before either selling way below original ask or being pulled from the market. honestly this neighborhood feels desolate and “sketchy” in parts of it, in spite of how beautiful some of the blocks may be. there are some large apartment complexes nearby that had lots of people hanging outside of it when i went there (mostly around the subway exit on nostrand). that was not an added value to the experience of exploring the neighborhood. plus, isnt this where that amateur sniper was shooting people earlier this summer? may be isolated crime, but it was crime nonetheless.
Yeah, the “Biblical proportions” is geared to his target audience, the Hasidic community, which this is smack in the middle of, but I don’t see blatant discrimination. The aforementioned Biblical proportions is the only language in the blurb that even comes close. The rest is just a flowery description of the house, no worse than any other ad. The mention of a second kitchen, and a lot of bedrooms should inform readers/shoppers that the current owner keeps a kosher house, and has a large family, which might imply this house is in an Orthodox neighborhood, but that is hardly discriminatory in of itself, it’s just a fact.
yep it’s quite a hasidic/jewish area, but if u walk to nostrand, you will see an interesting mix of kosher and caribbean stores, which is really cool in my opinion.
i went to see a house on caroll street, 2blocks north from this house (between same avenues, new york and brooklyn ave). i must say that is a superbly beautiful block, so well taken care of, most houses had manicured front yards, were in relatively good shape. plus there is an alley behind houses on that street, where people can have access to garages/backyard (not sure if it’s the case on this house too but it seems to be).
subway access is very nice too.
It’s because they’re afraid of a lawsuit, tybur