Would You Pay $6.495 Million to Live in Michael Chow's Dumbo Penthouse With Killer Views?

It’s an impressive pied-à-terre for the 1 percent with singular views and considered minimalist modern design.

by Stephen Zacks

04/23/2019 0

The developers of this duplex penthouse condo atop 1 John Street in Brooklyn Bridge Park didn’t waste any opportunities when they designed it. It’s an impressive pied-à-terre for the 1 percent with singular views and considered minimalist modern design. Fittingly, its first owners were Eva and Michael Chow, the ’80s (and many other decades) scene maker and owner of the Mr. Chow chain of celebrity hotspot restaurants.

Penthouse C’s rooms frame you-are-there views of the Manhattan Bridge, East River and Manhattan. The foyer opens up to a great room with a bank of six large windows overlooking the river.

To the left is another striking feature, an open-air atrium clad in wood and gravel, around which wraps stairs up to the private roof terrace with built-in grill and down to the bedroom floor.

The open kitchen continues the minimalist theme with a large, stone-topped island made of “rough-sawn oak” setting off a rectangle of pale gray cabinets and discreetly placed high-end appliances.

Downstairs are three bedrooms. In the master bedroom, three more large windows also face north toward the river, as do the two windows each in the second and third bedrooms. All the bedrooms have en suite bathrooms and plenty of closets.

The master bath has a cedar wall behind the freestanding tub, a long glass-walled step-in shower with two showerheads, and “hand-chipped stone mosaic floors,” in the words of the listing, from Eric Sidman and Stephen Litman of Compass. There is also a washer and vented gas dryer on this floor.

The apartment has wide-plank white-oak flooring and central air. Large round structural columns throughout the apartment appear to have been carefully placed to enhance sightlines.

Penthouse C is one of of six penthouses in the 12-story LEED Gold-certified full-service building. The property was developed and also designed by Alloy Development, one of whose principals is both a developer and an architect, Van Alen Institute chair Jared Della Valle. The firm is known for its well-designed projects such as the critically acclaimed brutalist townhouses on Dumbo’s Pearl Street.

Notably, here Alloy opted to build 42 extremely expensive apartments rather than the 140 very expensive units allowable by the zoning. The window sizes of the tower are tapered to become smaller toward the top, according to the developer/architects, to provide greater insulation from heat and cold.

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The otherwise spectacular location in Brooklyn Bridge Park is often crowded with visitors and just downstream from the ConEd plant, whose most recent oil spill occurred in 2017.

Altogether the unit is 2,567 square feet with a 750 square foot private roof terrace. Los Angeles-based Chow and his then-wife Eva Chun Chow purchased it in 2016 for $5.765 million. (The couple have since split, and Eva bought out Michael’s share of the unit in March for $2.943 million, slightly over half the original sale price.)

Now it’s on the market for $6.495 million. Monthly taxes are $3,075 and common charges are $2,836.

It’s one of seven active listings in the building. Would you rather live here or in a whole house in Brooklyn Heights? What do you think it’s worth?

[Listing: 1 John Street, PHC | Broker: Compass] GMAP