BROWNSTONE VOYEUR: That ’70s House in Boerum Hill

BROWNSTONE VOYEUR is a joint project of casaCARA and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. Look for it every Thursday on both sites.

LAST FALL, an unusual townhouse at 100 Nevins Street went on the market with an asking price of $1.975million. Ambitious, to say the least: it went to contract recently for $1.2million. A couple in the arts with two young sons are the almost-owners. They will use it as a one-family.

It’s not your typical brownstone. It took the right people to appreciate the narrow, stoopless four-story building at the corner of Pacific Street, with its dramatic, atrium-like living room and sculptural central staircase encased in plaster. There’s an enclosed garden on ground level and a roof terrace above. The 1970s renovation features such period-appropriate details as single-pane windows, curved doors that echo the lines of the stairwell, and the use of materials like mirrored tiles and cork for wall covering.

Nancy McKiernan, the listing agent, staged the place for sale, and did such a subtle job of it that she fooled me, for one. I assumed the house was decorated by some hip, tasteful people back in the day when the original Conran’s aesthetic was at its height.