Real Estate

Grand Crown Heights Brick Standalone With an Abundance of Original Details Asks $3.5 Million

Here’s a particularly lavish and extra-wide four-story brick standalone with a fascinating backstory.

by Hannah Frishberg

08/29/2018 0

Here’s a particularly lavish and extra-wide four-story brick standalone with loads of historical detail. Located at 190 New York Avenue, it’s in the Crown Heights North II Historic District and comes with a fascinating backstory.

Built circa 1896 and designed by Edward P. York (who was not “Rockefeller’s architect,” despite the listing’s claim otherwise) in a Colonial Revival vernacular, the two-family bay-windowed home is currently configured as top floor rental above a lower owners triplex.

A forest of millwork, with wall-to-wall mahogany panels and ornate details above the doors, can be found in the parlor level living room, which also has a fireplace (one of seven in the home). There’s a kitchen with laundry, one full bath, a rounded dining room and a den on this level as well.

There’s two staircases, the main one in the front (with an original newel post) that goes from the parlor to the top floor, and a back one that serves just the owners triplex.

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None of the bedrooms are pictured, but the master has a terrace, walk-in closet and pass-through to another second-floor bedroom. The two other bedrooms on this floor are in the rear and have separate entrances.

Bathrooms and kitchens are not pictured either. The triplex kitchen is described in the listing as a “blank canvass” that “needs your personal touch,” but a listing for the rental unit in 2014 shows a bathroom with a stained glass window and a clawfoot tub. So the conditions are ultimately unclear.

Speaking of the rental unit: it has two fireplaces, one pass-through and four closets. The garden level appears to have two legal bedrooms, a fireplace, a home office-sized room and a total of five closets, one looking to be walk-in size.

The building’s brick facade is accented by splayed lintels and quoining, and there are Ionic columns at the entrance.

As for the history mentioned above: in the 1950s, singer Ethel Waters lived on the second floor of the building. The home was showcased in an interview with Edward R. Murrow on his television program “Person to Person” in 1954. It was previously featured as a Building of the Day, where more of the building’s history can be found.

The home is six streets away from the Nostrand Avenue station and just over a block from the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Corcoran’s Paul Blanchette, who is also the owner, has the listing; the asking price is $3.5 million. What do you think?

[Listing: 190 New York Avenue | Broker: Corcoran] GMAP