Brooklyn Boro

A single-family home conversion with a twist at 146 Willow St.

Eye On Real Estate: And other Brooklyn Heights FYIs

January 27, 2016 By Lore Croghan Brooklyn Daily Eagle
A single-family home conversion is in the works at 146 Willow St., the building shrouded by construction netting. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan
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A single-family home conversion — that’s a story you’ve heard before in Brooklyn Heights.

But how often does the building have 11 apartments before its makeover?

Such is the situation at 146 Willow St., city Buildings Department filings indicate.

Construction work is underway at the four-story Willow Street building. It belongs to Shahrzad Khayami, who bought it through an LLC for $6.8 million in 2014, city Finance Department records show.

Khayami is a former senior portfolio manager at Citigroup Asset Management and founder of investment advisory firm AnK Capital, online sources indicate.

Facelift for Jemima Kirke’s former building   

The scaffolding has been removed from 106 Willow St., and its pretty face is prettier than ever.

The red-painted façade of the three-story brick rowhouse gleams. A copper drain pipe catches the morning sun.

The Brooklyn Heights Historic District house, which is divided up into co-ops, was built in 1844, a plaque on its exterior indicates.

“Girls” actress Jemima Kirke owned a unit in 106 Willow before buying a Carroll Gardens brownstone.

She bought the Willow Street co-op for $874,000 in 2010 and sold it for $1.15 million in 2013, Finance Department records indicate.

 

John Dowling of tennis apparel brand Boast is renovating 7 Columbia Place

Dude, why is there a pot leaf embroidered on your tennis shirt?

People who were preppies in the 1970s and 1980s remember Boast tennis apparel. The logo stitched over your heart is a Japanese maple leaf. Yes, it looks like weed.

We’re referring to Boast tennis gear in present tense because a few years ago, an entrepreneur named John Dowling bought the dormant brand. He has revved it up and brought it into the 21st Century.

Dowling is on our radar screen because he is renovating 7 Columbia Place, which is one of a nifty quartet of 1840s-vintage, Greek Revival-style frame houses with front porches that many Brooklyn Heights residents refer to as Cottage Row.

While this homeowner might not be the only John Dowling in the universe, he made it clear that he’s the clothing company president by using his Boast email address in Buildings Department filings.

Dowling bought 7 Columbia Place for $2.375 million in 2012, Finance Department records indicate.

The asking price had been $2.995 million, according to a Brownstoner.com posting.

Other renovations of note

So many Brooklyn Heights Historic District renovations deserve a mention. Here are two more:

* An eye-pleasing property facelift was recently completed at 48 Hicks St.

This house on the corner of Middagh Street was clad in historically appropriate green-gray clapboard. These are real wood planks, not fiber cement boards that look like wood.

According to Clay Lancaster’s book “Old Brooklyn Heights: New York’s First Suburb,” 48 Hicks was listed in the 1829 city directory as a boarding house.

* The renovation that’s being done at 19 Monroe Place includes a 1,500-square-foot “horizontal enlargement,” Buildings Department records indicate. The pre-renovation size of the four-story, single-family brick house was 5,370 square feet.

The Greek Revival-style home was built in the 1840s. Ryan Christopher Ogg and Katharine Bieber Ogg purchased it for $6.285 million in 2014, Finance Department records indicate.

There are several home renovations on Monroe Place, which is a block-long historic gem of a street. And a new construction fence is up outside 1 Monroe Place, AKA 100 Clark St. — a prelude to the long-awaited restoration of a rare neighborhood eyesore that the Buildings Department half-demolished in 2008 because it was in danger of collapse.

 

Recent brownstone sales

Fast facts from Finance Department records (unless otherwise noted) about the sale of two handsome Brooklyn Heights brownstones:

* In November, John Patroulis and Donna Lacey Patroulis bought 28 Garden Place for $5.2 million from Stephen Smith and Roberta Smith.

According to a March 2015 Curbed.com posting, the asking price for the 1850s-vintage home had been $6.2 million.  

* In December, Claudio LoCascio bought 163 Hicks St. for $4 million through a trust. The seller was John Gray Philips individually and as surviving trustee of the Ruth Gray Philips Living Trust.

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