House of the Day

Prospect Heights Brownstone With Six Fireplaces, Dumbwaiter, Central Air Asks $4.85 Million

This 1890s brownstone offers an abundance of space, period details in fine condition and modern amenities like central air and updated wet rooms.

prospect heights townhouse for sale 294 park place interior

by Susan De Vries

09/07/2022 0

This 1890s brownstone offers an abundance of space, period details in fine condition and modern amenities like central air and updated wet rooms. In the Prospect Heights Historic District and just a short walk from Grand Army Plaza, 294 Park Place is unusually well preserved and recently renovated.

The row house has been in the same family since 1987 and comes with built-ins, mantels, a pier mirror, fretwork and plasterwork. The 19-foot-wide structure was built by prolific developer William H. Reynolds, who in 1896 was advertising “artistic colored stone dwellings” with tiled baths, hardwood trim and bookcases on this block of Park Place near Underhill Avenue. Reynolds developed much of the block, with Romanesque and Renaissance Revival-style details in the mix, between 1895 and 1898. No. 294 dates to circa 1897, according to the designation report.

A renovation in 2008 and 2009 kept many of the original interior details while adding central air, new windows, reinforcing stairs, relining the chimneys for six working gas fireplaces, and updating electrical and mechanicals. The single-family has four bedrooms on the upper two levels, three full and two half baths, a spacious parlor floor, and the kitchen in the traditional garden-level location.

Many of the intact details can be found on the parlor level, configured with a 31-foot-long front parlor, rear parlor and dining extension. There is an intact stair in the entry and plasterwork and stained glass in the front parlor. A fretwork screen divides it from the rear parlor, set up as a dining room, with a columned mantel and built-ins. The original dining extension, cited in a 1905 ad for the house, has a stained glass bay with window seat, fireplace and a working dumbwaiter that connects to the kitchen below.

That kitchen got a complete renovation with white cabinets, an island, double wall oven and a water filtration system. A breakfast nook has a banquette, a fireplace and a wall of glass — “ultra-hurricane glass,” according to the listing — with access to the rear garden where there is a built-in grill.

Bedroom space includes two bedrooms per floor. On the second floor, the street facing bedroom includes a mantel, an en suite half bath and a walk-in closet. On the third floor, both bedrooms have en suite full baths and there is a bonus office space. The listing photos show the full baths renovated with neutral finishes, two with showers and the third with a tub.

Laundry is on the third floor, with another in the finished cellar along with a wine cellar and rec room. The exterior appears in fine condition, with carved stone ornament and a dog-leg stoop.

Listed with the Ryan + Ryan Team of Compass, the brownstone is priced at $4.85 million. Worth the ask?

[Listing: 294 Park Place | Broker: Compass] GMAP