Open House Post-Game Analysis
If you visited any of this weekend’s Open House Picks, we’d love to hear your feedback in the Comments section of Friday’s post. Thanks.
If you visited any of this weekend’s Open House Picks, we’d love to hear your feedback in the Comments section of Friday’s post.
Thanks.
I was posting under the open house thread. i did go to the 357 decatur. very nicely renovated with details in tact. kitchen is in an extension on the ground floor of the duplex. backyard was unimpressive.
the price is definitly pushing the limits of the neighborhood. however, no work has to be done and maybe someone will pay a premium for that.
i will be surprised if it goes that high. the newest four story to hit the market is a block away and is asking 1.2, but that’s one of the coveted landmarked houses.
anon 9:47 — I don’t think you have to worry too much about buyers buying a home with many well-preserved details and ripping them out. It’s simply not worth the cost, because you pay too much of a premium for them. What’s more likely and cost-effective is to rip out poorly preserved details, or better, to do a modern reno of a house in which a previous owner ripped out details decades ago.
Re: “too much original detail,” after 100+ years styles (and lifestyles) change. Not everyone wants to be surrounded by carved dark wood and hulking pier mirrors. These are houses, not museums. I personally love the proportions of old brownstones and the quality of their craftsmanship and many other things (including some original detail) but I also appreciate that this is 2005 not 1899.
I know it’s all a matter of taste… but how can there ever be too many “original details.” The original details articulate the intended aesthetic intent of that particular structure. Anything less speaks of some barbarization of the architect (author’s) original intent. I really feel that people who want modern should build modern. Tear down the neglected eyesores that are beyond reasonable restoration and realize your vision, but please, don’t buy a beautifully preserved home and then destroy it. If the poster below is passing on this house for this very reason, I applaud you!!!! And I hope you find exactly what you are looking for elsewhere…:)
The OHs I attended seemed pretty robust.
6th street was all about original details. No change to layout/configuration, but plaster walls, crowns, moldings – everything had been restored. The wood accents were beautiful. No AC, Original steam heat, some updated electric, the “gazebo” outside is really an arbor with a gorgeous flowering vine on top. That was the high point. Very curious to see where it trades.
I saw both 6th St & 6th Ave – w/6th Ave the clear winner. 6th Ave didn’t have a hall on the parlor level. So while it is technically the smaller house, it had more useable space and a larger feel. The studio apt had a private entrance and use of the garden, the tenant has to pass though a room w/mechanicals but there is a shared washer dryer. The garden was not as mature as 6th St, but had room for kids to play. And it had an interesting niche stone cliff that looked to be beyond the property line (I was assured it wasn’t). The upstairs bedrooms were a bit on the small size, which is my only hesitation.
The 6th St house was okay, but it had too much in the way of original details for my taste. The chair-rails visually cut down the height of the ceilings and contributed to a more closed in feel than the 6th Ave house. The kitchen was all the way on the garden floor. This would make sense if you converted the garden into an Apt – but then you have to shoulder the cost of a kitchen on the parlor level. Even if they were priced the same I’d go w/6th Ave. Betancourt seems to be to be 150K off the mark w/this one.
Anyone go to the Carraige House on 15th Street? If so, what was the verdict?
whoops – posted in the wrong place. sorry!