A Brooklyn Townhouse Built More Than 100 Years Ago Lists for $14 Million
Summary
The Prospect Park home is one of the most expensive residences for sale in the boroughA circa-1898 Brooklyn townhouse with an original built-in safe is coming on the market for $13.995 million. The home, located on Prospect Park, is one of the priciest listings in the borough.
The Park Slope mansion was designed by Montrose W. Morris, an architect who designed several notable Brooklyn buildings, historical documents show. The limestone house is currently owned by Deborah Goodstein-Rosenfeld, a writer and film producer, and her husband, Tommy Rosenfeld, founder of CanAm Enterprises, which facilitates investments by foreigners seeking U.S. green cards. The couple bought it for $3.75 million in 2004, property records show. They declined to comment.
The owners completed a major renovation around 2015, when they updated the electrical and plumbing, added central air and redid the kitchen and bathrooms, said listing agent Amy Mendizabal of Compass, who is marketing the property with colleagues Leonard Steinberg and Leslie Frishberg Wolfowitz.
The house spans about 9,000 square feet with a glass-and-bronze canopy over the front entrance and a courtyard garden in the rear, Mendizabal said. There are original details throughout, including intricate moldings, a carved wooden stairway, coffered ceilings and wood paneling. The house has multiple stained-glass windows, including a skylight that brings light into the core of the house.
The safe is located in a lower-level rec room. “The safe is built into the foundation of the building, so it’s going nowhere," Mendizabal said.
The parlor level is a vast entertaining space, with a living room that overlooks the park connecting to a second living room, dining room and kitchen. Often, homes of this age had kitchens downstairs, Mendizabal said.
The home was previously rented, asking $18,500 a month, according to StreetEasy. Mendizabal said the Rosenfelds moved out when the house became too big for their needs. The couple purchased a condo at Pierhouse, a new development in Brooklyn Bridge Park, for about $10.25 million in 2017, records showM
Brooklyn’s luxury market has slowed since last year, with the number of sales dropping 42.6% in the second quarter from the prior-year period, according to real-estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
Still, mansion-scale homes on the park don’t come up often, Mendizabal said. A Brooklyn Heights mansion that sold for $25.5 million in 2021 holds the Brooklyn sales record, Miller Samuel data show.
Mendizabal said a house across the street from the Rosenfelds property recently sold for just under $12 million. “This is truly a collector’s piece of real estate," Mendizabal said.
Write to E.B. Solomont at eb.solomont@wsj.com