$40M in ... Brooklyn? 'Unquestionably the most elegant brownstone' in NY
Time was (and not long ago), Brooklyn's overriding reputation was for urban grit. It was home to some of the nation's most dangerous and drug-infested neighborhoods.
Now? New York's most populous borough is perhaps best known as the capital of hipsterdom — "repulsive with novelists," as the (ex-Brooklyn novelist) Jonathan Lethem says, "blander, a little more accessible, and it's taken over the world."
As if to prove its ascendance, Brooklyn recently posted its most expensive listing ever — a $40 million brownstone heralded by the real estate agent thusly: "Much like a long awaited centennial celebration, a residential sale of this magnitude comes around very seldom, and when it does, quite often history is made." The owner bought it in 1991 for $2.3 million.
3 Pierrepont Place and its twin next door at No. 2 are widely considered "unquestionably the most elegant brownstone mansions anywhere in New York City." It was built in 1857 for Abiel Abbot Low, a trader who imported tea, silk and porcelain from China. His son Seth, who grew up there, became mayor of Brooklyn and later of consolidated New York.
The mansion also had a star turn as Don Corrado's home in the Oscar-winning Mafia movie "Prizzi's Honor."
The mansion has been subdivided into eight units but can be delivered vacant, allowing it to revert to its original single-family use.
