A tidy one-bedroom on the penultimate story of a Brooklyn Heights brownstone mixes original details with fun updates, including a minimalist kitchen with white cupboards and a blue counter. It’s located at 21 Monroe Place, an eight-unit co-op in an imposing five-story walkup likely built sometime around the 1870s.
Originally a single-family house of grand proportions, the 25-foot-wide building lost its stoop and distinctive ornament sometime after its early 20th century tax photo was taken. That image shows the house in full Neo-Grec splendor, with stoop intact, mansard roof, pronounced strappy cornice, columns, pediments and dormers as well as robust ironwork.
Likely in the early 20th century, the house was divided into apartments, two per floor. (Recent renovations created two floor-through units on the first and third floors, reducing the count from 10 to eight.) This apartment occupies the rear of the fourth level.
The nearly square living room has two big windows with original shutters, a carved white marble coat, wood floors, and plaster and wood moldings. The windowed bedroom has built-in shelves and is big enough for a king sized bed and other furniture, although it seems to lack the closet indicated on the floor plan.
The kitchen is big enough for a small table and has attractive plain white cupboards and a fun blue counter, although no dishwasher or window. The bathroom mixes green and black vintage tile and more recent gray fixtures and marble mosaic tile floor.
There is laundry and additional storage in the building’s basement, according to past listings, and a common roof deck. The co-op allows 90 percent financing and the monthly maintenance for this unit is $976.
Listed by Sylvia Dimova of Corcoran, the apartment is asking $729,000. What do you think?
[Listing: 21 Monroe Place #4R | Broker: Corcoran] GMAP
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