New York City townhouses are first ranked by location, and elegant Brooklyn Heights, overlooking Lower Manhattan, is arguably the best in the outer boroughs. Next up? It’s all about the width, baby. Townhouses should be as thicc as possible, and this Brooklyn Heights beauty is a very generous 25 feet wide. The residence should also have as many original features as possible, even if the owners plan to decorate in a starkly contemporary style. Light, too, is highly prized when there are houses attached to either side of you, as is a generously sized garden.
This place checks all the boxes. Listed for $7.25 million, the mid-19th-century townhouse is available via Deborah L. Rieders and Sarah Shuken at Corcoran. It’s four stories, with the garden level currently rented as a dentist’s office, and offers seven bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms in 5,500 square feet.
The current owners, malpractice attorney Lois Ottombrino, and husband Marty, a digital marketer, have kept the interiors very traditional. With original chandeliers, needlepoint rugs, carved Victorian furniture, gilt mirrors, and curvy sideboards. It all looks like “I just flew in from 1855 and boy are my arms tired!” Other rooms include simpler Arts and Crafts furniture and rugs, circa 1905.
The couple have taken good care of the place, with original moldings, marble fireplaces, parquet floors, and a very nice staircase, all original. Upgrades include air conditioning, a new roof, an alarm system, and a redone stoop. (A functional stoop is also important in a brownstone, meaning a brownstone with a stoop is better than one without.)
Shaded by trees in the summer, the back garden includes a large terrace and professionally planted garden beds with an irrigation system. The garden level — the dental office — will be delivered vacant to the new buyer, and if they don’t want to rent the space, it could be made into a playroom, home theater, a guest suite. Below the garden level is a dry basement with plenty of room for storage.
Brooklyn Heights is a lovely neighborhood—a lot like Manhattan’s Upper East Side, with fantastic shops and restaurants and tons of old brownstones. It is, therefore, murder finding a townhouse of this size in this condition and at this price in the nabe, so this one really seems like a winner.
