When Nina Lorez Collins and her husband moved into 212 Columbia Heights in 2005, The Times declared that “the Manhattanization of Brooklyn took a great leap past the point of no return.” One violent divorce later, Ms. Collins, a once celebrated literary agent, put the house on the market last fall. The listing bragged of “harbor views from every floor,” which helped it fetch a record $11 million, the most ever paid for a home in Brooklyn Heights.
So would Ms. Collins be returning to Manhattan after her journey in the wilderness? It turns out she could not even abandon those harbor views, as she has moved down the hill to One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the hulking Jehovah’s Witnesses printing plant turned condo complex.
Two days after the sale of her townhouse closed, Ms. Collin’s paid $3.51 million for a four bedroom condo at the development on January 19, according to a freshly filed deed. That is more than the $3.08 million asking price from the summer of 2010, though the premium not only reflects a stronger real estate market but also the inclusion of a terrace unit, one of those clever carve-outs so popular during the real estate boom—might I interest you in your own private cabana?
The unit is one of the townhouse-style homes facing the harbor, with its own private entrance and a pocket terrace. Built as a duplex, the living area and one bedroom are located on the upper floor with two more bedrooms and the master suite on the lower level spread across an ample 3,482 square feet—not quite the 7,000 footer Ms. Collins once called home, but still none too shabby. Plus, Brooklyn Bridge Park is right out front her door, no need to cross the BQE anymore to get there.
“One Brooklyn Bridge Park is a monumental building, grand in scope, scale, and style,” MNS broker Rachel Poggi writers in her listing. Kind of like Ms. Collins, who has become HuffPo’s own Carrie Bradshaw, writing about the travails of her friend’s marriages and her own. After spending two decades in the publishing industry, Ms. Collins is now at work on a memoir of her own.
But with only four bedrooms, where will Ms. Collins’ four children, whom she often writes about, stay? Perhaps the naughtiest child can take up residence in the cabana.
Want to see the place for yourself? Someone posted an incredibly thorough (and rambling) tour on YouTube.
And the cabana.
This guy is good.
