Allison and Thomas Franco took a few knocks after buying the townhouse at 67 Cranberry Street in Brooklyn Heights for $2.8 million in 2007. Well, one very prominent knock, anyway. The home caught fire two years later as it was undergoing a renovation to convert it from two to one-family purposes, drawing more than 20 firefighting vehicles to the scene. No one suffered injuries in the blaze, however, and empathetic—and un-envious—real estate snoops were no-doubt cheered in June, when the Francos were named as the buyers in one of Brooklyn’s most expensive residential sales to date, of a delightful $10.625 million townhouse on Willow Street, also in Brooklyn Heights.
And now, city records show, the very specimen that endured the aforementioned trial by fire has sold, too, to one Ann Horowitz for $6.25 million. William Costigan and Jennifer Schwartz, of Douglas Elliman, had the listing.
As that figure suggests, the place has come a long way since being charred and hosed down by New York’s finest. An 1840 home with a clean red brick facade that dates to roughly 100 years later, the house has been finished—finally—in winning 21st century style. Twenty-one feet wide and 65 feet deep, it boasts a two-story back wall of glass (of course), and, in a show of undaunted courage, no fewer than six wood burning fireplaces. A chef’s kitchen has all the fancy appliances that give it the right to that lofty—and kind of annoyingly common—designation, and its open plan gives out to what might be a media room or library, depending on the occupants’ relative tech savvy.
But regardless of preference for Kindle or good old-fashioned hardback, surely most anyone might enjoy the two-level landscaped patio, which can be accessed from the library (we’re going with it), and viewed to fine effect from the parlor floor dining room. There are three bedrooms and, off the master, a “green” roof deck, complete with automatic sprinkler—strictly for irrigation purposes, of course.
