A Haunted House With a Dramatic Past

Every year, Janna Kennedy and Randall Hyten turn their co-op Italianate mansion on Clinton Avenue into the most authentic haunted house in town. And as you can see from the photo (at right) that we snapped last week, they’re not above making a political statement in the process. After moving into a rental unit in the building in 1985, the couple squatted in the second and third floors after the owner died and the house was left in temporary limbo. And in 2000, after the death of the previous owner’s last heir, Ms. Kennedy and Mr. Hyten were finally able to buy the house, for $599,000.

Given their own lack of capital, the purchase involved finding a co-investor (one of Kesley’s teachers), buying out the remaining tenants (for $21,830 each, a number they “pulled out of the sky,” she said), and renovating the building into four condos – a lower duplex, plus cellar, for themselves and three floor-through apartments to sell because the co-investor decided not to live there. The work, which took two years and cost about $450,000, was finished in 2002. The two-bedroom, approximately 1,400-square-foot apartments, painstakingly restored and updated with new stainless steel kitchens with granite counters, two baths and washer-dryer units, each sold for $635,000. We were only able to catch a glimpse of the front hall when we strolled by but are hoping to get another chance to see how the restoration turned out.

A Brownstone Goes Horrorwood [NY Times]