It may be a condo record in a brownstone neighborhood, and it may be fleeting, but for the moment, it’s 277 President Street‘s time in the sun: a contract for a condominium spanning two brownstones in Carroll Gardens has just closed, and it is the most expensive sale of its kind—at least that we know of—for the neighborhood.
“We just closed on Thursday,” Town Residential broker Terry Naini told The Observer, setting the neighborhood record at $2.4 million for the three-bedroom, 2.5-bath unit.
“What’s really unique about this condo is that it spans two brownstones,” she explained. “Forty feet wide, it’s a floor-through. The developer bought two brownstones, and basically completely took it down to the shell and created five apartments.”
The two buildings, with matching light brown faces and perfectly aligning façades and cornices, were not always that way—“before” photos from Barrett Design, who did the renovation, show two similar but nowhere near duplicate brick townhouses, with windows not quiiiite aligned. “The street façades were completely restored with brownstone surfacing, window and door details, and openings were enlarged to their original grandeur,” quoth the designer.
“I helped the seller purchase it in 2009,” Ms. Naini told The Observer. (Property records show them to be Gina Mastantuono and Luke Feltham; Ms. Naini would not, of course, reveal the buyers’ names.) “There were no floors, we were just walking across slats of wood looking down.” The unit now boasts not only floors—that essential amenity for any modern New Yorker—but five-inch wide plank oak floors, along with Caesarstone countertops, a pot-filler by the stove, and “hand-glazed subway tiles” in the bathroom (in case you were feeling a bit too clean?).
Enjoy it while it lasts, though, 277 President—the Sackett Union’s newly-constructed townhouses have already entered contract, according to Streeteasy, and a penthouse asking $3.1 million for more than 2,500 square feet of space is aiming to set a new record for priciest Carroll Gardens condo. Then again, with 277 President having closed at $1,256 per square foot against the Sackett Union condo’s $1,207-a-foot ask, the price-per-square-foot record is likely still Ms. Naini’s—till she breaks it again, at least.