Search Results for: Brooklyn Heights

April 22, 2015

Stuyvesant Heights Townhouse Offers Three Kinds of ‘Green’ for $1.45M

This multi-family townhouse at 633 Macdonough Street in Stuyvesant Heights is an exquisite combination of high-end renovations and beautifully restored details—and green in more ways than one. Fully renovated in 2011 and impeccably maintained, this three-story home features a new EPDM roof with an environmentally-friendly solar array (green #1), an income-producing rental on the top floor (green #2), and your very own garden (green #3).
See more of this very green home
April 17, 2015

New Yorker Spotlight: Getting the Scoop with Jennie Dundas of Brooklyn’s Blue Marble Ice Cream

Spring may have taken its time this year, but the sun is shining, the trees are finally starting to bloom, and this means one thing–it's officially ice cream season. If you're looking for the perfect local scoop, which also happens to be consciously sourced and organic, then you might just stop by Blue Marble Ice Cream's Cobble Hill or Prospect Heights shops or pick up one of their pints on your next grocery store trip. Blue Marble Ice Cream was co-founded in 2007 by former roommates turned entrepreneurs Jennie Dundas and Alexis Gallivan. For Jennie and Alexis, who originally connected on Craiglist, a love of ice cream inspired them to open a scoop shop. And while neither had a business background, they were determined and opened up in Brooklyn. Fast forward several years, and Blue Marble is ready to expand nationwide after being picked up by a number of major supermarket chains. On a local scale, they're part of a wave of businesses helping to transform Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, something of which the company is extremely proud. We recently spoke with Jennie to get the scoop on Blue Marble's founding, its headquarters in Industry City, and of course, to find out why ice cream is everyone's favorite warm-weather (or year-round!) treat.
Read our interview with Jennie here
April 17, 2015

Staten Island’s Revival Offers Brooklyn Cool Alongside $600,000 Six-Bedroom Homes

It's only a matter of time before Staten Island gets pinned as the next Brooklyn. As new developments pop up along the northern tip, the oft-forgotten borough is seeing the tides turn in its favor. Today the Times ran a piece on some of the biggest projects coming to the island, and unlike those popping up in Manhattan, this bunch is far more focused on livability and community building. Moreover, with rooftop beehives, shared vegetable gardens, small-batch espresso, pet spas, artisanal shops shilling specialty olive oils, and cheese caves in the pipeline, Staten Island is also starting to sound a lot like some of the city's most hipster-run areas. In fact, in casting its net for local testimonials, the Times was able to find Ridgewood and Bushwick refugees that have already high-tailed it southwest. And it's no wonder, with real estate being offered at just a fraction of the price—one couple in the story closed on a house with "numerous porches and six bedrooms, for $620,000"—it's only a matter of time before we turn to our significant others and say, "Let's move to Staten Island!"
More on Staten Island's next steps here
April 9, 2015

At Brooklyn’s Gateway, Woods Bagot Kicks Off Construction of the Jay Street Residences

AmTrust Realty has recently kicked off construction on a 250,000-square-foot, mixed-use project near Brooklyn's Manhattan Bridge approach. The development will be a step towards reconnecting Downtown Brooklyn to its waterfront, and, along with several other proposals, helps remedy a maelstrom of mid-century planning disasters between the two areas. Known as the Jay Street Residences by its designers Woods Bagot Architects, the project has previously gone by the addresses 120 Nassau, 199 Jay, 203 Jay, and 213 Jay Street. Its 38,000-square-foot lot, now under excavation, will give rise to an L-shaped complex composed of a 33-story tower anchoring Concord and Jay Streets, as well as an eight-story hotel and amenity wing along its western Jay Street frontage.
More details on the project here
April 7, 2015

Brooklyn’s Most Expensive Condo Relists for $32M, Is So Large Owners Can’t Find Each Other

Imagine this: You and your spouse have both been home for three hours, but neither one of you knows the other is there because your home is that big. It's a "problem" most New Yorkers can't fathom, but for one Brooklyn couple it's encouraged them to relist their 11,000-square-foot triplex for $32 million, making it the borough's most expensive condo listing ever. Stuart and Claire Leaf originally listed their home in May, but then took it off the market in February after getting cold feet about moving. As the Wall Street Journal reports, "The apartment is a combination of no less than nine units spanning the 10th, 11th and 12th floors of the waterfront condo One Brooklyn Bridge Park." It includes six bedrooms, two deeded parking spaces, a 3,500-bottle wine room, a gym with a rock-climbing wall, a screening room, and a 75-foot-long terrace.
Take a look around the mega-home here
April 6, 2015

Historic Prospect Heights Townhouse with Glass Addition Wants $4M

Want to live in an awesome Prospect Heights townhouse and earn money at the same time? This gorgeous home built in 1910 is currently set up as an owner's triplex with a one-bedroom income suite on the garden level. It must've undergone a pretty intense renovation considering the owners paid $900,000 for it back in 2007, and now it's back on the market asking $4,075,000. And it has some pretty impressive features, like floor-to-ceiling windows and a floating staircase in the back of the house, which was positioned to join the original building with the four-story glass curtain wall addition. You'll find exposed brick throughout the home, whether original, whitewashed, or boasting a deep blue hue. There are also keystones with a man's face carved in them at the entrance.
More pics inside
April 3, 2015

Hillary Clinton Sets Up Campaign Headquarters in BK Heights; How Chocolate Bunnies Became Associated with Easter

The first major exhibition of Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s notebooks opens today. [Brooklyn Museum] Sources are reporting that Hillary Clinton’s campaign headquarters will work out of two full floors at 1 Pierrepont Plaza in Brooklyn Heights. [Politico] This 1974 government document shows how to make a proper cocktail. [Washington Post] There’s an Occupy Wall Street walking tour. […]

March 26, 2015

Mayor’s Affordable Housing Plan Flawed, More Likely to Harm Brooklyn’s Most Expensive Nabes

The revitalization of East New York is at the center of Mayor Bill de Blasio's affordable housing plan, but like his ambitious Sunnyside Yards project, his ideas for the fallen areas of Brooklyn are apparently also filled with holes. According to a piece published by the Wall Street Journal yesterday, de Blasio's plan to re-zone 15 neighborhoods to allow for taller and denser housing won't do much good for affordable housing. The main reason? The rents are too low. In fact, housing experts believe that his plan is more likely to hurt the character of Brooklyn's most tony areas, including Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Crown Heights, amongst many others.
More on their findings here
March 3, 2015

$2.4M Joe Ginsberg-Designed Prospect Heights Loft Has a Suspended Office

Get ready to feast your eyes on this stunning Prospect Heights loft located in the Newswalk Condominium–and unlike anything offered on the Brooklyn market today. Every detail was masterfully created by award-winning designer Joe Ginsberg, from original furniture pieces fabricated in the artist’s atelier and included with the home to the specialized techniques and processes used in creating the distinctive wall and ceiling finishes.
More of this one-of-a-kind home
February 18, 2015

Historic Home Labeled the ‘Height of the Heights’ Can Be Yours for $7.9M

Calling all historic preservationists, townhouse connoisseurs, and brownstone lovers. If you’re looking to nerd out on original detail and old polite-society New York, we may have found just the home for you. The broker of this bauble cleverly describes it as the “height of the Heights” because of its location in a quiet cul-de-sac at the highest elevation in Brooklyn Heights. The five-story home has only had a few owners, so it’s well-preserved, and it boasts a restored brownstone façade on a 125-foot lot.
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February 10, 2015

Buy Your Sweetie an Empty Lot in Newark for $1000; Inside Brooklyn’s First Net Zero Condo Building

The city of Newark has announced a “Valentine’s Day Land Sale” of 100 city-owned empty lots at $1,000 apiece. [Brick Underground] Tour R-951, Brooklyn’s first net zero-capable solar-powered passive house condo building in Prospect Heights. [Inhabitat NYC] First look at the hotel planned for the huge hole near the Lorimer stop. [Curbed] A controversial plan to […]

February 8, 2015

MADE IN BROOKLYN: A Rep for Authenticity and Excellence That’s Well-Earned–and Far from New

The story behind cheese-aging facility Crown Finish Caves in Crown Heights tells of an enormous amount of risk and dedication to making something on a small scale; to doing one thing well. It also once again stirs the hive of buzz around today’s Brooklyn. Article after article raises the idea that Brooklyn’s moment as the new hot spot for excellence in food, culture and authentic, hand-crafted goods, is in some quarters regarded as trite and trendy hype with little substance to it. For some, the underground cheese caves are just one more example: Cheese caves. How Brooklyn. Thirty feet below street level, in the lagering tunnels of a former brewery beneath the Monti Building in Crown Heights, Benton Brown and Susan Boyle spent several years renovating and creating “Brooklyn’s premier cheese-aging facility” complete with state-of-the-art humidity control and cooling systems. The couple created the 70-foot space with advice from the world’s top cheese experts; Crown Finish Caves opened in 2014. On an article in Cheese Notes, a commenter raves: “If I were a mouse, I would move to Crown Heights.”
More excellence and authenticity this way
February 5, 2015

Rents in Harlem Shoot Up, Brooklyn Studios Expensive as Ever

MNS has just released their 2014 report pointing to rental performance in the Manhattan and Brooklyn markets over past year. And as you've probably already guessed there are no surprises here—rents were up. Leading the charge in growth were Harlem where new luxury listings gave the area a major boost, and of course Brooklyn which continued see growth at remarkable rates, particularly with studio units which were up more than 20 percent in some nabes.
Find out more here
February 4, 2015

Brooklyn’s Most Expensive Listing Ever: A $40 Million Mansion with a Mayoral Past

There's no shortage of beauty inside, out, or around this stunning Brooklyn Heights mansion which has just hit the market for a record $40 million—the most expensive residential property ever listed in the borough. While that amount may make our mere mortal hearts skip a beat, the price tag is certainly warranted when you consider the following: It encompasses 17,500 square feet, there are 15 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, and more than 9,000 square feet of garden and outdoor space, and it boasts enough original details to make even the biggest history buff's head spin. As the listing so aptly states, "Much like a long awaited centennial celebration, a residential sale of this magnitude comes around very seldom, and when it does, quite often history is made."
Tour the spectacular $40M home here
January 22, 2015

Enjoy the Ultimate Brooklyn Loft Experience in This $2.3M Ensemble Architects-Designed Duplex

On a gorgeous, tree-lined street in Brooklyn Heights lies this fully-renovated apartment at the top of the landmarked former YMCA building at 62 Joralemon Street. As we wrote about in September, the loft-style duplex was given new life by Elizabeth Roberts of Ensemble Architects, who used a combination of salvaged and new materials to create the ultimate Brooklyn pad. And it can now be yours for $2.295 million.
Let's take a look
January 21, 2015

Get ‘Em While They’re Cheap: A Look at Crown Heights Real Estate Past and Present

What once seemed unheard-of in terms of where to rent or buy in tertiary neighborhoods is now a thing of the past—be it Harlem, Williamsburg, Hell’s Kitchen, Long Island City, or the Lower East Side. But one of the best examples of rapid transformation is Brooklyn. Certainly there are many coveted communities such as Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope, but there is another neighborhood making what looks like a very successful run at gentrification: Crown Heights.
More on the Crown Heights renaissance here
January 20, 2015

Goldilocks Blocks: Lowry Triangle in Prospect Heights, Where the Gritty Meets the Gentrified

It’s...gritty. But it’s Prospect Heights. Anchoring an oddly magical Brooklyn crossroads where Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Clinton Hill meet, bisected by noisy, gritty Atlantic Avenue, Lowry Triangle and its surrounding blocks form a literal mashup of three neighborhoods, all of which began hitting their gentrification strides at slightly different times. On a map it’s legitimately Prospect Heights, whose border is a block to the east at Grand Avenue. It’s a small but decidedly cool zone, open and semi-industrial, where old brick buildings share space with a growing number of sleek, modern boutique condos, compact cubes fronted by vast expanses of glass; a fascinating juxtaposition of old and new.
What you might not notice if you're just passing through
January 14, 2015

Affordable Brooklyn Fading: Last Chance to Buy a Home Under $1M in Areas Like Bed-Stuy and Bushwick

If you've been looking to buy a home in Brooklyn, you'd better do it now–because townhouses under $1 million are going fast as investors and house hunters turn to the likes of Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Crown Heights for cheap buys after being priced out of other areas in the borough. The news, which comes via DNA Info, isn't all that surprising, as we reported just yesterday that $3 million-plus townhouses are becoming the norm in already-gentrified neighborhoods like Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope. But those mulling over whether or not to close on a home in an up-and-coming neighborhood had better make the move, because affordable townhouse listings are increasingly becoming few and far between.
Find out more here
January 13, 2015

Paying $3 Million-Plus for a Brooklyn Townhouse Is Now the Norm

Brooklyn's real estate market is hot, but the market for historic townhouses is searing. Today, the NY Post cites Ideal Properties' latest report which reveals that $3 million-plus townhouse sales in Brownstone Brooklyn and North Brooklyn increased 579 percent in the last five years, and accounted for 9.5 percent of the 1,035 townhouses sold just last year. Record-breaking sales in the last quarter gave the segment its biggest boost, and rising inventory is expected to swell this number even further over the coming year.
Find out more here
January 12, 2015

Minimalist Prospect Heights Carriage House Asks $2.5M

This converted carriage house in Prospect Heights is back on the market with another price drop, this time, asking $2.499 million. The minimalist 22.5-foot wide home has a touch of European farmhouse charm in a raw modern warehouse, with some vintage accents like reclaimed sinks, found antique gates, repurposed mirrored French doors and tin ceilings. Not to mention the fact that the home comes with a private garage (currently being used as an artist studio space).
Take a look inside
January 8, 2015

Rents in Brooklyn Still Up Even with a Boom in New Listings

MNS has just released the December rental reports covering Manhattan and Brooklyn. Far from surprisingly, rents were up in both boroughs, each seeing a solid increase year over year. But one finding that definitely stood out was Brooklyn's 9 percent uptick in new listings between November and December 2014. Whether rents will reflect the new inventory the coming months has yet to be seen; November on December figures slow only the slightest decrease with average rents falling from $2,677 to $2,666 (a 0.39 percent drop). Bigger picture figures show that since December 2013, rent prices have increased 3.08 percent rising from $2,587 to $2,667 in December 2014. Brooklyn neighborhoods that did especially well last year included Boerum Hill, which saw an average rent increase of 15.7 percent from $2,668 in December 2013 to $3,088 in December 2014; and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, which saw a 9.5 percent increase since December 2013—a continuing trend for the nabe. So, is Brooklyn still having its moment?
More details on Brooklyn and the Manhattan dispatch this way
January 7, 2015

Prospect Heights Row House Once Literally “Gone to the Dogs” Is Now Best in Show

Like most townhouses of its time, this Prospect Heights abode suffered from what Delson or Sherman Architects referred to as "common row-house ailments." Dark in the middle and spatially flat, coupled with the fact that it had housed a kennel in one of its former lives, this home had literally gone to the dogs in more ways than one. But wait until you see how the firm transformed the Brooklyn house.
From dark and flat to bright and layered
January 6, 2015

Dean/Wolf Architects’ Amazing Brooklyn Townhouse Has an Operable Tetris-Like Facade

Fusing indoor and outdoor space is a rare occurrence in places like New York City, where outside real estate rarely constitutes anything more than a 2 foot x 5 foot fire escape. So when the residents of this Brooklyn Heights townhouse moved into their new pad, they knew that their spacious backyard would have to be the star of their home. As such, the Brooklynites called upon Dean / Wolf Architects to take on the task of breathing new life into their townhouse, and by the looks of things, they couldn't have chosen better. Instead of simply employing floor-to-ceiling windows to make the connection, the savvy architects designed an operable, puzzle-like rear facade that allows the home's inhabitants to seamlessly join the indoors and the out with just a few turns of the wrist.
More on the aptly named 'Operable Boundary Townhouse/Garden' here
December 17, 2014

$2.5M Romanesque Revival Rowhouse in Prospect Heights Is Full of Original Details

"I want something with character." This is definitely a line brokers hear all the time. And if their current character-seeking client is looking to move to brownstone Brooklyn, this $2.5 million Romanesque Revival rowhouse in Prospect Heights is the perfect place to satisfy their check list. Located at 268 Prospect Place, the three-bedroom, 2,430-square-foot home was built by William L. Beers in 1899. It's oozing with historic details, including six fireplaces, stained glass transom windows, moldings galore, a carved wood staircase, sand wood floors, original wainscoting, cornices, and shutters.
Tour the historic home here