House of the Day: 27 7th Avenue
The Brooklyn Home Company picked up this Romanesque Revival, which we called a “time capsule” when it was a House of the Day, for $1,565,000 in 2012 and has completely redone it with a now-fashionable all-white look. We don’t know if the dark wood had already been painted or if the floors were beyond saving,…
The Brooklyn Home Company picked up this Romanesque Revival, which we called a “time capsule” when it was a House of the Day, for $1,565,000 in 2012 and has completely redone it with a now-fashionable all-white look.
We don’t know if the dark wood had already been painted or if the floors were beyond saving, but we’re not big fans of stark all-white walls and pale white oak floors in general, but especially in Victorians.
High-resolution interior photos from before the renovation can still be seen on Corcoran’s website, and the wood work certainly looks unpainted and the parquet appears to be in good condition, at least in the entry and parlors.
In fact, the listing refers to “pristine original woodwork,” but also lists many upgrades that seem to have come later, such as “new 3 1/4-inch white oak floors throughout, and new heat and central air.”
In any case, most of the original details are intact, and we like the marble and subway tile in the updated bathrooms and kitchens. The facade has been restored with Landmarks-approved windows. There is multizoned central air and heat as well as a landscaped garden with bluestone.
The house was built in 1887 and designed by architect Laurence Valk, according to the LPC designation report. It is red brick with rusticated stone details and features dormer windows with a Queen Anne sunburst motif.
It’s set up as a triplex over a two-bedroom garden floor rental. Do you think this will go for the full ask of $4,000,000?
27 7th Avenue [Corcoran] GMAP
I just noticed the house next door; 25 7th Ave is an SRO that has been owned by The City of NY since 1971. !! Why would the City own this building this long? It also has Boiler violations, a Sprinkler violation, violations for rotten windows etc.
Why would someone pay $4,000,000 to live next door to an owner that has very questionable maintenance records, but the City of NY!? Can you imagine fighting with them when there sewer breaks or a tree in their back yard falls and any of those other annoying negligent neighbor issues happens?
Why in this day & age does the City own this building?
Too many of these classics are being vandalized, destroyed, what ever you want to call it.
To say that this is what people want today is not the answer. There is plenty of choice out there including brand new townhouse construction, or older houses that have already lost their original detail.
One does not buy a classic Rolls Royce to customize it into a hot rod, it destroys the long term value. Just as destroying the original detail and balance of these classic houses does. This is the beginning of the end of the appreciation of classic Brownstones.
Ten to fifteen years from now they will all be herding out to suburbs again to get distance from each other.
The woodwork was definitely cheaper to paint but I understand the choice beyond the cost. These houses can look so dark with all that woodwork and it also tends to make them feel smaller — if it’s a narrow house it can be a killer. As for the floors — it’s a tough one but I bet you anything they’d be stripped and redone so many times they were too thin to salvage. We ran into that problem with our house and decided to give them a light buff and poly them thick and hope to get some more good years out of them… But they’re thin and creak and I’m sure someday we’ll be forced to redo them properly as they fall apart and come up. It’s hard. Hopefully we’ll have the money at that point to do a good job matching what had existed but that’s a rare option. What do you do? Live with floors your kids get splinters from and you rip your socks on nails that come up all the time or put something new in that can meet the needs of your family? We are supposed to actually live in these houses right? I’m all for preservation but I’m also for making the right personal choices. I think these folks did what most buyers would find they needed to do….
For a noisy corner with no garden to speak of, it seems a stretch to me. But in this market we have seen all kinds of things fly…
“we’re not big fans of stark all-white walls and pale white oak floors in general”. That’s my favorite aesthetic. But I agree it looks way out of place in this house.
I love this house I wish the wood was not painted…
Completely agree!! That white painted woodwork is awful. To me, that aesthetic doesn’t work AT ALL in that kind of home.