Curbed, picking up from the Wall Street Journal, reports that Benchmark Real Estate Group, which purchased the 22 unit former Jehovah’s Witness apartment building at 50 Orange Street (photo; southeast corner of Orange and Hicks), has plans to gut it and convert it into a single family residence; in Curbed’s words, a “ridiculous megamansion”. Benchmark hired the firm Renovated Home to draw up specs for such a grand residence. They include “four bedrooms, a gym, a wine cellar and a roof terrace.” A prospective buyer may use the Renovated Home design, but, for the $22 million asking price, is likely to have other designs in mind.
BHB reader Andrew Porter’s comment on the Curbed story:
Hate to tell you, but when the JWs renovated this place several years before they sold it, they tried and tried to fix the brickwork, but apparently couldn’t. So got permission from Landmarks to simply paint the exterior, covering up rotten brickwork.
Photo by moi for BHB.