Prospect Park South: "Country in the City"
We’re sure everyone saw the glowing NY Times piece on Victorian Flatbush yesterday. The article included some interesting background on the origins of the nabe: The sense of a “Country in the City” was what the developer Dean Alvord set out to create when he purchased 40 acres from the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in…
We’re sure everyone saw the glowing NY Times piece on Victorian Flatbush yesterday. The article included some interesting background on the origins of the nabe:
The sense of a “Country in the City” was what the developer Dean Alvord set out to create when he purchased 40 acres from the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church in 1892. The streets were given British names, and houses went up on minimum lots of 50 by 100 feet, set back 30 feet from the curb. Early residents included chief executives of Gillette, Sperry Gyroscope and McAllister Brothers, the tugboat fleet.
We were also interested to learn that longtime Brooklyn broker Roslyn Huebener was the former owner of the 4,000-square-foot house in the story lede. Close followers of the market may recall that she was in the news earlier this year for buying a 4-story brownstone on Fort Greene Park for $2.15 million. This trade would suggest that either a) she thinks Fort Greene has more upside than Prospect Park South or b) that she’s made enough dough in this bull market that she doesn’t care and just wants to live in Fort Greene. We’d guess that on a percentage basis PPS has more upside than Fort Greene–what do you think?
Near Prospect Park, a Touch of Greenwich [NY Times]
Congratulations on your beautiful FAMILY HOME (usually the primary issue for buyers choosing PPS and other neighborhoods in Victorian Flatbush). We own a house in neighboring Beverley Square West. There were only a limited number of homes on the market when we started looking 2 1/2 years ago – we lost out on our “dream home”, but are very happy in the house we did finally purchase. It needed a little work, is a tad smaller than many of the homes in the area (yes, you start to envy those with 7 or 9 bedrooms), but it is an architectural gem that we are honored to preserve. We basically swapped our (unrenovated) 3 bed with a study in prime Park Slope and have never looked back. One point I would like to make her in defense of Victorian Flatbush – I have lived in many neighborhoods in NYC, primarily in Manhattan. I was dragged kicking and screaming to Brooklyn by my husband (we have a large blended family). Park Slope was OK, but I never was a convert. Victorian Flatbush is something else entirely. A real “neighborhood” with active, caring residents who have created a sense of community that I have never experienced anywhere else. We may be lacking a few amenities (although that’s changing quickly), but it’s the people who really make the place.
I think you did get a decent deal – slightly over a million for a house that does not need much work. I understand your choice – that is what made us look in the area too. Since you purchased, however, many of the houses are now priced well over a million and need quite a bit of structural, electrical and plumbing work – not just cosmetics (in reality – the cosmetics on many of these are fine – they replaced the appliances so it looks good, but not the systems backing them up). Good for you – for slightly over a million and little work, we would also have considered the neighborhood.
I’ll be frank. I’m the one who bought the house featured in the Times article this past Sunday. We started looking in victorian flatbush a full year ago and found one house — in ditmas park on east 17th Street — that we liked. It was offered through Brooklyn Properties, was a beautiful house, at 899k. The lot was either 40×100 or 50×100, and the house had some very nice details. But, the kitchen needed work, the bathroom on the top floor needed a lot of work, and the back yard was a mess. The great features included vanities between bedrooms on the second floor and some very nice original detail on the first floor. We came close but did not get the house. In continuing to look and finding our house on Albemarle, we felt that the additional 125k bought us a nicer house on a much bigger lot, with much less work to do, and it’s a mile closer to Prospect Park than the east 17th Street house, which was between Newkirk and Ditmas Avenues. We are close to CIA and Church, we do pay a lot for heating the house, we will need to do work that probably exceeds the expense necessary to keep a brownstone in good shape. With all of that said, it was a no-brainer trading our 3 bedroom coop in a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights for the PPS house. We have almost 3 times the space. We do miss the convenience of the Heights, Cobble Hill, etc., and the commute to Manhattan is a bit longer than I’d like. With 3 kids, a five minute walk to Prospect Park, a one minute walk to the Parade Grounds, and all the perqs of Brooklyn, I think we did quite well, especially given our relatively modest financial situation. At the time we made the offer on the Albemarle house, the only other house we were interested in was on Willoughby (essentially across the street from the house featured by Brownstoner as being a relative bargain). But for 300k more than the Albemarle house, we decided PPS was the better choice, for us, not for everyone, but for us.
Also – note the number of houses that have come on the market in Victorian Flatbush since the first person forked over more than a million for one of these. There used to be one or two on the market at any given time and now there are over a dozen. Apparently at the first sign that they can make any money on their homes, many in these neighborhoods are getting in line to get rid of them (not just the Huebener broker). This isn’t exactly an advertisement for the desirability of the neighborhood.
No actually – I was not the person who defamed Rugby Road, although it is one of the houses I looked at when I was considering the neighborhood and decided against. I considered the neighborhood, although far less than ideal for me, when the prices were much lower because I am not a multi-millionaire. Most people in this area who are not multi-millionaires find it necessary to consider not so great neighborhoods. I am surprised this is news to you. For many of us – it is just reality. When the prices get to be the same as the much better neighborhoods, however, we walk away and can’t help but scratch our heads at those who have a ton of money and still want those neighborhoods. Each to his own. I was simply stating my view – even though it is not that of many on this board who I assume live in the neighborhood and like it. There is no question the houses have great potential, but be honest, none of you spent millions on them and if they were priced in the millions at the time, you might have bought elsewhere. It just isn’t the deal it used to be so you really need to love the neighborhood to buy there – that is all I am saying. Also – the commute from some of the burbs to midtown is also not bad and your property taxes pay for good schools.
Hey Anonymous: You must have been the one who defamed the Rugby house a few weeks ago. You seem so disgruntled. Why even consider the neighborhood when you paint such a negative picture, regardless of price? The neighborhood clearly works for some and not for others. The suggestion of the suburbs as an alternative fails to recognize that PPS is very close to the best things that the city has to offer — parks, restaurants, museums, diversity — and the property taxes are low (just a fraction of the taxes on the kind of house you suggest in the suburbs). There are pluses and minuses in every neighborhood. But not too many city neighborhoods are as beautiful as those in Victorian Flatbush.
We thought about the PPS area but ended up changing our minds due to the 50-100% price increases in the neighborhood over the last 6 months or so. When you could get one of these for $700-$900K it made some sense to us. But now, with the $1.4M price tags on houses that need new roofs, plumbing, etc… and cost a ton of money to heat and maintain, it doesn’t seem worth it. If you are truly a Brooklyn/city person, you can get a decent brownstone that doesn’t need so much work or upkeep and has ammenities nearby for $1.6M (the asking price of these plus the amount of work they need to replace roofs, plumbing, electrical, etc…). If you aren’t so into the city feel and want a driveway and the feeling of the burbs, you can buy a beautiful mansion with a pool and a good public school system in Westchester for $1.6M. When it came down to it, this sort of seemed like the worst of the two worlds to us, not the best. You get (A) a high maintenance house where your neighbors know all your business and most people drive everywhere because there aren’t many ammenities close by (the worst of the suburbs, in my view) in (B) a not so safe neighborhood (note the security team they pay to patrol it and try to walk around at night – it is creepy with no one on the streets) with not so great schools (the worst of the city).
I agree, but for my million plus dollars, I’d prefer a house on Rugby or Marlborough (even on the tracks) between Albermarle and Beverley. The yellow house is great, it’s just unfortunate that the cross streets don’t do it justice.
What we love about Prospect Park South is that it’s not Greenwich, but very much a part of the urban, gritty feel of Brooklyn. And yes, even if the large yellow house is close to Coney Island Avenue and Church Avenue, the area is so close to the Parade Grounds, Prospect Park, and a number of subway lines (even the F is close by) to make it part of the Brooklyn scheme, and not just an isolated enclave.