For Rent: Idyllic Family Home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

UPDATE: It’s rented!:-)

ASK MY KIDS, they’ll tell you: Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, is a great place to grow up. Especially on Verandah Place, the most coveted block in perhaps the most charming neighborhood in brownstone Brooklyn. It’s a row of mid-19th century brick carriage and mews houses, with a vest-pocket park right across the street and a highly regarded public elementary school two blocks away. Never was there a better street for skateboarding or jumping rope; car traffic is minimal. The river, the harbor and Brooklyn Bridge Park are a few blocks away; so are the best Middle Eastern and Italian groceries you’ll find in NYC.

And how often does a four-story, five bedroom, three bath townhouse with a great garden come up for rent on Verandah Place, especially one that’s just undergone a two-month spiffing up from top to bottom? Not often, let me tell you. If I could afford it, I’d live there myself (and did, for 20 years), but right now, it’s for rent, with a long lease possible.

Our 1850s townhouse is bright and ridiculously charming, full of simple details that characterize its classic architecture: original cove moldings, four-panel doors, rare black marble fireplaces (two working) and harmonious, perfectly square rooms.

Live there, work there — the garden level would lend itself beautifully to use as a studio or professional office, or as a guest suite, play or media room.

The entire house is freshly painted, with newly refinished floors. The kitchen has custom cabinets, honed granite countertop, Sub-Zero fridge and Viking stove next to a large dining room with wood-burning fireplace.

But why take my word for it? Have a look at my many photos, below. The official listing is here. Check out the professional photos on the realtor’s site (especially if you want to see the park across the street), or contact me at caramia447 (at) gmail (dot) com for further details.

P.S. Scroll all the way down to read some quirky factoids I’ve pulled together about Six Verandah Place and its location.

Welcome!

Parlor floor entry. Stairs go down to studio/garden level. Library/den to left, formal parlor ahead to left, beyond classical columns.

Library, den, media room, what have you. 15’x15′. Closet to right, double entry doors.

Come on in to parlor/living room. Door straight ahead leads to wrought iron balcony down to garden.

Major gap here: The photos above show just two angles on a 15’x22′ room with a marble mantel and two six-over-six windows overlooking the garden. Now up we go to the second floor…

Room straight ahead can be used as study or small bedroom. Overlooks garden. I wrote many a magazine article there.

View from dining room into hallway. Staircase, of course, original.

Dining room. About 15’x18′. Marble fireplace burns wood. Knoll credenza stays.

Bathroom on second floor has stall shower, washer/dryer, window overlooking street.

Coming up to top floor landing…

Master bedroom has skylight, arched windows, two closets, overlooks garden, rooftops.

2nd top floor bedroom.

3rd top floor bedroom.

Top floor bathroom with deep soaking tub.

Oh, wait! There’s another whole floor downstairs, on the garden level… and a full storage basement below that.

Two room studio can be used for myriad purposes. Guest suite, playroom, teen hangout, professional office. Another access to garden.

        

Garden-level bathroom has full tub, 1940s green tile.

Private garden with slate patio.

THE LORE OF SIX VERANDAH PLACE

• The house is pre-Civil War, built in the mid-1850s.
• It has more original interior detail than any other on the block (and I’ve been in most of them). That includes 4 marble mantels, cove moldings on the parlor floor, and the staircase/balusters. The ornate fixture in the front entry hall was once a gas fixture and is original to the house.
• Legend has it that the house is part of a row of five, all built by one gentleman on Warren Street for his five daughters and their families. These were not carriage houses, though there are several on the block; they were always one-family houses.
• The house is backwards! (That may be true of the whole row of five.) What is now the front facade of the house was originally the rear facade. If you stand in the garden and look up, you see its full size.
• The house is backwards probably because access was from Warren or Henry Street. There must have been an opening or possibly a road that ran through what is now the back garden in the 19th century.
• The rear parlor (living room) was originally the front parlor. We opened up the hallway and inserted the columns (which are salvaged porch columns) in the late 1980s, shortly after we bought the house.
• We also raised the ceilings on the top floor in the two back bedrooms (when we bought the house, those two rooms were an attic you couldn’t stand up in) and added the three arched windows.
• The kitchen dates from 2000. Cabinetry is custom maple, and the appliances (Viking, Bosch, Sub-Zero, etc.) have all been professionally refurbished.
• Cobble Hill Park became a park in the 1950s. Prior to that there was a church there, and Verandah Place was gated. The church was torn down, and a supermarket was set to go up in its place. The community objected, and the park was created. The sandbox is centered on a unique concrete dolphin that has been there since the ’50s and was preserved in a 1989 park renovation.

Want more info? Email me: caramia447 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Prospect Heights 1BR $2100/mo.

NOTE: This is NOT my new pied-a-terre, and the apartment is no longer available. This post is for voyeuristic and informational purposes only.

MY COUCH-SURFING DAYS WILL SOON BE OVER. I’m on the verge of signing a lease for a garden floor-through in Prospect Heights. As of November 1st, I’ll be able to say the words “pied-a-terre” even more often. I’m fantasizing how I’ll place my furniture, and my new landlords are being kind enough to allow me to choose paint colors. It’s premature to say any more.

I found my apartment-to-be on Craigslist (“by owner”), and though the pickings in Prospect Heights, my target neighborhood, are fairly slim, and there is a sad preponderance of bad renovations, there is one other listing I want to share with you. It was rented in a flash. I’m posting these pictures purely as an example of what’s available on the Brooklyn rental market for lovers of old houses who are prepared to do a diligent search.

It’s a top floor (long climb, bright) on Sterling Place, very near the Brooklyn Museum. The terracotta color of the building, top, and arched windows on the ground floor make me think Renaissance Revival, though most of the neighborhood dates from the 1890s, three decades past that style’s heyday. The apartment has TWO working fireplaces (one is rare enough — this is the outstanding feature, as far as I’m concerned) and the mantels and moldings are the original dark woodwork. Pity about the kitchen in the middle, but what can you do — it’s gotta go somewhere.

Pretty swell, don’t ya think? No wonder the landlord had people fighting over this one.

Regret to Relief in Seconds Flat

HOW QUICKLY REGRET CAN TURN TO RELIEF. When I saw this listing for a c.1900 East Hampton farmhouse with an asking price of 599K and the red words “In Contract,” I immediately felt the pang of having missed out on something wonderful. I added the house to my mental catalogue of real estate regrets (and they are legion – you can’t have lived in Brooklyn in the late 1970s and not regret NOT buying up a slew of brownstones when they were going for $50,000).

Now I’m living in East Hampton and loving the area – and I’m quite pleased with my little 1940s cottage. But I still have a compulsion to keep looking for the sort of house I originally thought I wanted – a 19th century farmhouse with a front porch. This one is very well located, on a quiet one-way street of older homes. It’s perched on a hilly two-thirds of an acre, and the backyard, above, is more like a field, with 16 acres of protected land behind. It feels secluded, yet it’s a stone’s throw from Nick and Toni’s and Della Femina, local restaurants of legend, and all East Hampton has to offer (I’m beginning to sound like a real estate listing myself).

Through-the-window shot, showing wood floors, original windows and doors, and fresh paint

I drove over to Floyd Street this morning after the gym to take a look. As soon as I pulled up in front of the place, my heart was at peace. I wish the people who are in contract all the best, and hope they get their mortgage. But they’ll have their hands full with repairs, from the dilapidated porch to the 1950s era asbestos shingles and God knows what else, lurking in the basement or on the roof. If I had to guess, I’d say it looks as if someone started out with great ambitions – there’s a trendy farmhouse sink in the kitchen and new stainless appliances – but ultimately didn’t have the resources to pull it off.

What all this says to me is that it’s a buyer’s market. 599K (and we can assume the contracted price is lower) would have been unheard of in East Hampton village three years ago. So let’s all keep looking, if only for the fun of it. Can’t be much fun for sellers though.

BOOK REVIEW: Restoring a House in the City

OLD TOWNHOUSES usually come with big ‘buts,’ points out Ingrid Abramovitch in the intro to her new book, Restoring a House in the City: A Comprehensive Owner’s Guide to Renovating Town Houses, Brownstones and Row Houses With Great Style (Artisan). They may have “charmingly anachronistic grace notes, from imposing classical entrances to parlors straight out of Edith Wharton novels,” she writes. But less charmingly, they also tend to have roof leaks, slanty floors, and ominous cracks in the wall.

Never mind. IMO, as readers of this blog know, those are mere annoyances, no contest at all compared to the many pluses of living in a house built in the 19th century, when houses really were built. This book offers abundant proof that antique houses are worth the effort.

Parlor, Fort Greene

It features 21 exceptional dwellings, from a Boston Brahmin to a double-wide brownstone in Troy, N.Y., a Greek Revival in Charleston, and a San Francisco Edwardian that survived the 1906 earthquake. The projects closest to my heart, of course, are those in Brooklyn, well-represented with six envy-inducing houses.

Fireplace wall, Fort Greene

Some are restored, some extensively remodeled. Some are furnished with antiques, others done up in a modern mix. There’s nothing cookie-cutter about any of them. A couple are a bit over-the-top for my taste: too much clutter, too much color. But most ooze warmth and livability.

It’s no surprise that the book’s interiors are impeccably styled and photographed. The author, a resident of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is a veteran design journalist and a former editor at House & Garden and Martha Stewart Living.

Parlor, Park Slope

Luscious as it is, Restoring a House is not just a look book. Along with the inspiration, there’s a hearty dose of practical information on such topics as wood floors, brickwork and ornamental plaster. How can an old-house lover resist?

Entry hall, Brooklyn Heights

All photos from RESTORING A HOUSE IN THE CITY by Ingrid Abramovitch (Artisan).
Copyright 2009. Brian Park photographer.

Whole House in Cobble Hill Can Be Yours Tomorrow!

KNOW ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO RENT a 5BR, 3 BATH TOWNHOUSE in Cobble Hill? A truly special four-story house, on a coveted park block, with great light, two working fireplaces, a high-end kitchen, wood floors, lots of original detail, and a delightful garden?

That would be mine. It’s been vacant for two whole weeks, and I’m getting nervous.

Sure, I was smug a few months back, sitting pretty with my rental property 100% occupied, crowing about the strength of the rental market. That was when I thought I could, as usual, segue easily from tenant to tenant. That was before this damn recession affected me personally.

I even had the nerve to start a blog subtitled “Old Houses for Fun and Profit.” Well, forget the profit. With the Cobble Hill house unrented, my monthly income is suddenly halved, and there’s no fun in that, either.

I thought I was doing everything possible to rent the place, listing it with several brokers and painting the house top to bottom. But I haven’t tried blogging about it until now.

So: if you are (or know someone who is) a large, solvent family in need of an extraordinary dwelling in a prime Brooklyn neighborhood to the tune of $8,000/month — a lot of money, granted, but it’s also a lot of house — e-mail caramia447@gmail.com without delay, and save a hefty broker’s fee.

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THE LORE OF VERANDAH PLACE

A few quirky tidbits about the house and its location:

• The house is pre-Civil War, built in the 1850s.
• It has more original interior detail than any other on the block (and I’ve been in most of them). That includes 4 marble mantels, parquet floors on the parlor floor, cove moldings on the parlor floor, and the staircase/balusters. The ornate fixture in the front entry hall was once a gas fixture and is original to the house.
• Legend has it that the house is part of a row of five, all built by one gentleman on Warren Street for his five daughters and their families. These were not carriage houses, though there are several on the block; they were always one-family houses.
• The house is backwards! (That may be true of the whole row of five.) What is now the front facade of the house was originally the rear facade; that’s why the front is unimpressive.  If you stand in the garden and look up, you see its full size.
• The house is backwards probably because access was from Warren or Henry Street. There must have been an opening or possibly a road that ran through what is now the back garden in the 19th century.
• The rear parlor (living room) was originally the front parlor. We opened up the hallway and inserted the columns (which are salvaged porch columns) in the late 1980s, shortly after we bought the house.
• We also raised the ceilings on the top floor in the two back bedrooms (when we bought the house, those two rooms were an attic you couldn’t stand up in) and added the three arched windows.
• The kitchen dates from 2000. Cabinetry is custom maple, and the appliances are all status symbols (Viking, Bosch, Sub-Zero, etc.)
• Cobble Hill Park became a park in the 1950s. Prior to that there was a church there, and Verandah Place was gated. The church was torn down, and a supermarket was set to go up in its place. The community objected, and the park was created. It was renovated in 1989.