Real Estate

Lavish Park Slope Limestone With Mahogany Mantels, Stained Glass Asks $5.295 Million

This delightfully detailed Renaissance Revival townhouse is wall-to-wall woodwork, built-ins and stained glass — plus there are updated kitchens, baths and central air.

by Stephen Zacks

03/13/2019 0

The breathtaking spring properties keep on coming. Another grand townhouse with all the trimmings in Park Slope just hit the market and is having an open house this Sunday from 2:30 to 4 pm. Built in 1901, designed for well-known Brooklyn residential developer William Flanagan by architect P. J. Cullen, 553 1st Street is part of a row of four that features no end of florid historical details dating from the Renaissance Revival era.

It’s configured as a triplex over a garden rental, and special features include an unusually large four-room garden floor rental and an enormous parlor-floor kitchen with a skylight and bay window in an extension.

On the exterior, the townhouse’s parlor-level double-door entrance is framed by a pedimented hood and fluted classical columns topped by scrolled capitals, a detail that appears throughout the interior. Past the vestibule, the foyer showcases a pier mirror and a grand staircase with a bullnosed curtail step and fluted column topped with more scrolls.

The scrolls reappear in a grand fashion on columns between the two parlors and on the pilasters of the three-sided window bays and trim around the pocket doors, as well as on the columns of mantels and built-ins. The cornices are bordered with egg-and-dart and dentils. All of the woodwork appears to be mahogany.

The front parlor is stuffed with garlanded wainscoting and plaster wreath reliefs all ornamented with foliate details. The middle parlor, now serving as the dining room, has an elaborate original built-in cabinet — typical of grand Renaissance Revival townhouses — brightly patterned floral wallpaper, paneling and stained glass. Its imposing tiled and columned mantel matches the one in the front parlor.

The parlor-floor kitchen, inserted into an extension that was likely originally the townhouse’s formal dining room, is no less replete with crafted details, including an elaborate carved mantel, stained glass on three sides and a bracketed skylight. The ceilings here are coffered and bordered with egg and dart.

There are stone counters and an island and cabinets outfitted to match the room’s paneling. A run of cabinets is embedded in a florid window bay. A door leads out to a deck and a spiral staircase down to the garden.

Upstairs, the five bedrooms are accompanied by bathrooms on each floor and dressing room passthroughs with built-in sinks and cabinets, along with what may be oak door and window trim and mantels. A beautifully updated bathroom mixes a period light fixture and wood trim with modern fixtures, new tile and a step-in shower.

The upper triplex also has laundry and modern upgrades such as zoned central air.

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553 1st Street is in the Park Slope Historic District. It’s part of row of limestone houses built in 1901 and designed by P.J. Cullen, according to the 1973 designation report. In keeping with the trend of the time toward less repetition along the block, the row alternates between rounded and three-sided window bays.

Its neighbor to the east at No. 551 outdid them all with its ornamental cartouches and iron gated entrance: It was once the residence of U.S. Senator William M. Calder, whose obituary in the Times credited him with building 3,500 homes and also with cursing us with the first daylight savings time legislation.

In the same family since 1986, the property is listed by Kyle Talbott and Karen Talbott of Corcoran for $5.295 million. Considering all its special features, does the ask seem reasonable?

[Listing: 553 1st Street | Broker: Corcoran] GMAP