Brighton Beach $14M ‘Mansion’ Listing Humbles Heights’ 2012 Multi-Mill $ales Records

By on May 2, 2012 1:05 pm in Other Brooklyn, Real Estate

Take that, 36 Garden Place. A 9,200-square foot single-family home at 2134 Ocean Parkway bordering Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay has trumped Brooklyn Heights as the double-digit million dollar borough capital. The “palatial” property has an asking price of a whopping $14 million: $4 million more than Brooklyn’s previous record-setting Garden Place listing, which hit the market in late February.

The asking price also bests the Heights’ other lofty 2012 residential sales, including the Capote House at 70 Willow ($12M), 183 Columbia Heights ($6.6M), 161 Columbia Heights ($3M) and 50 Orange Street ($7.1M).

The Real Deal reports that the Ocean Parkway Mediterranean-style 5-bedroom home, steps from Brighton Beach, is the second most expensive listing among all residential properties in Brooklyn, behind DUMBO’s ever-enduring $19 million listing for the Clock Tower penthouse at 1 Main Street. (Garden Place and Ocean Parkway are competing as the largest single-family borough listings, as opposed to Clock Tower’s multi-residence status.)

“It’s like a palace in the middle of Brooklyn,” co-listing broker & NestSeekers SVP Ryan Serhant told Real Deal. “It’s all custom. Everything is imported, from the marble to the chandeliers.” The realtor listing describes the manse as such: “Articulately customized in the finest finishes of marble, granite, wood and lacquers, this massive residence is truly one of a kind. The home is touched with limestone accents and finished in two-tone stucco and an authentic green terracotta style Spanish roof.”

It also features a multi-level art-nouveau staircase accented by artisan wrought iron panels, a dome skylight, two kitchens, a master bedroom with a French-doored balcony, herringbone-floored library, game room, 4.5 bathrooms, an elevator serving all floors and garden/patio.

The residence has been owned by the same family since 1992, which is listing the property because their family has grown up and moved out, Serhant says. Public records identify the current owners as Ely and Rivka Levy, according to Real Deal.

(Photos: NestSeekers International)

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  • bhres

    there are no words to describe that interior. well, hideous, i guess. that’ll work.

  • Bezhukov

    Let it be noted that the original asking for 40 Willow was in fact well north of $14m. This owners of this kitschfest are deranged if they expect to do nearly so well. But then, they appear to be deranged anyway.

  • GHB

    Money can buy lots of things, but class ain’t one of them!

  • SPM

    It should sell quickly as it is smack in the midst of the Sephardic community there and I believe will be re-sold within the community as it’s within walking distance from the synagogue, has ample room for large families as well as capacity for a glatt kosher kitchen.

  • stuart

    It looks more like an oligarch’s yacht than a house.
    It reflects a culture and residential aesthetic totally divorced from those of the United States.
    .

  • Wize Old Man

    Umm, did someone forget that a townhouse facing the promenade on Columbia Heights was sold a few years ago for $15 MM to a Goldman Sachs banker? Brooklyn Heights still has the most valuable real estate in Brooklyn, by far.

  • Elaine Comstock-Leirer

    There is no doubt that Brooklyn Heights has the most valuable R.E. in the borough. This house even from the outside view is as a blogger here said, a kitchfest. No taste curving downward to ugly.Even as it is in the convenient neighborhood for those of that faith, I cannot imagine paying so much money for it. Maybe this is an advertising gimmick by the TV personality who listed it. Lots of free press.

  • my2cents

    Have they ever heard of area rugs? They really tie rooms together.

  • WillowSt.Neighbor

    I did a Google search of the address. Zillow has a map of the houses in the surrounding area and what they are valued at. Most of the houses are valued at below 2 million. Maybe it was a gimmick to price the house at 14 million. A house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. It will be interesting to see what this house actually sells for. As far as it being tacky, I lived in a waterfront community on the south shore of LI for 15 years and the interior of those houses looked very similar to this one.

  • Cranberry Beret

    I’m sorry to break it to you Brooklyn Heights partisans, but here is the list of neighborhoods for the top 10 most expensive sales of 1-, 2- and 3-family houses in Brooklyn in 2011 (courtesy of nyc.gov):

    1 OCEAN PARKWAY-SOUTH $10,250,000
    2 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $6,000,000 (tie-Oct)
    2 OCEAN PARKWAY-NORTH $6,000,000 (tie-Sept)
    2 OCEAN PARKWAY-SOUTH $6,000,000 (tie-April)
    5 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $5,250,000
    6 OCEAN PARKWAY-SOUTH $5,150,000
    7 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $4,100,000
    8 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS $3,920,000
    9 OCEAN PARKWAY-SOUTH $3,850,000
    10 MIDWOOD $3,750,000

    Of course, Brooklyn Heights has already had two $10 million+ sales in 2012.

    For 2011, of the 29 houses that sold in Brooklyn for $3 million or more, the distribution is (ranked in order of highest sale):

    Gravesend/Midwood/etc – 7
    Brooklyn Heights – 10
    Park Slope – 6
    Cobble Hill – 4
    Manhattan Beach – 2

  • resident

    You guys need to read SPM’s post. This section of gravesend has ridiculously priced houses all because of one religious community that pays huge money to live close to their place of worship. Normal market factors are not at play.

  • Brooklyn Tea

    This house takes tacky to a whole new level.

  • Willowtowncop

    I’m not religious but I can’t imagine any religion that would be ok with it’s followers living in tacky McMansions like that while other people starve in the streets.

  • Cranberry Beret

    You wrote: “This section of gravesend has ridiculously priced houses all because of one religious community that pays huge money to live close to their place of worship. Normal market factors are not at play.”

    I think this is equally true:

    “Brooklyn Heights has ridiculously priced houses all because of one community of investment bankers that pays huge money to live close to Wall Street, their place of worship. Normal market factors are not at play.”

  • GHB

    Willowtown Cop, what does living in a tacky McMansion have to do with people starving in the streets? One has nothing to do with the other.

  • http://www.greenpointers.com Greenpointers

    Who would want to live there? It looks like a hotel.

  • Wrennie

    Oh, fantastic–I’ve always wanted a bedroom in which I can fit two king-sized beds.

  • Willowtowncop

    Wasting money on unnecessary crap that no one needs when it could be used to do good things for other people while at the same time pretending to be pious by wearing your hair a certain way and abstaining from certain foods is hugely hypocritical.

  • eg

    Willowtown cop – You are ready to make mean remarks about something about which you do not know all the facts. Every group (religion has nothing to do with it) have people with different tastes, i.e. tacky, over-decorated, whatever. Actually it reminded me of the set for “The Sopranos”. more nouveau riche Italian.

    Come out with it. Stop the euphemisms. You mean Jews. And yes, they are pious, in the own way, which has nothing to do with this house.

  • AEB

    I think it’s perfect! It just needs slot machines, especially in the bathroom….

  • GHB

    Thank you, eg!

  • bornhere

    Willowtowncop – “Pious” needn’t necessarily mean humble; but that aside, just remember:
    “We are all part of the same hypocrisy, senator.”

  • Willowtowncop

    I didn’t say “Jews.” If they were Italian Catholics I would say the same thing. I was a Catholic for awhile in college so I do know something about that – I know the passage about it being harder for a rich man to get to heaven than a camel to get through the eye of a needle. I don’t personally believe any of it but I don’t think it’s necessary to be pious yourself to recognize that spending thousands of dollars on religious ceremonies like first communions or whatever when they could be done free and the money donated to charity – or living in a multimillion dollar mansion and going to hear sermons every week about the virtues of humility and charity – is hypocritical.

  • Wrennie

    Hypocrisy is just a thing with pretty much everyone on Earth, unfortunately. It can be religious, political, racial, environmental–whatever.

    At the end of the day, it’s an ugly house and it’s unnecessary. Although, who knows–maybe those chandeliers are from a Grameen Bank-funded chandelier-making outfit in India and the 17 in this house alone just fed 8 families for a year.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Agreed. I’m not sure why a $14 million house (when people are starving on the streets) is any worse because the owner is pious. Would you be less offended if the owner was a Gordon Gecko type?

  • John Wentling

    @Wrennie: Those are known as “kosher beds”, Orthodox Jewish men are not permitted to sleep with their wives at that time of the month, thus, the separate beds. Typically, it’s two doubles or fulls pushed together and pulled apart at the appropriate time.

    The term people are looking for is probably “garish” – personally, I find the whole place “icky”. :)

  • Jorale-man

    “We make your dreams come true!”

    Is that a bidet in the bathroom? A little hard to tell with all the shiny marble surounding it.

  • Jorale-man

    Oops, make that “surrounding.”

  • realbrooklyn

    I know the owner of the house’s brother. The outside as well as the inside is ugly, looks like it belongs in bay ridge or something, if you yupsters even know what that is:). Bottom line is this house is nothing special and isn’t even prime location. Most homes are classier and decorated with traditional east coast style (if not outside than inside). And I gaurantee you, houses go for more but its all word of mouth, so you brownstoners wont hear about it. Same with midwood where I live. Residents (mostly ashkenazic orthodox) equally wealthy but have more old money characteristics that reflect in the homes and the prices we’re willing to pay for them.

    Brooklyn heights? Park slope? These places are irrelevant to us. I’ve never even heard of park slope until this year (Google padded restaurant) and I think its ghetto and ugly. (I appreciate Brooklyn Heights’s architecture and quaintness but would never live there.)

    And one more thing, Brooklyn is the Jerusalem of the US for religous Jews. (Wether its boro park/williamsburg-chassidish, crown heights- lubavitch, syrians in gravesend or orthodox in midwood, Jews from all over the country recognize each of these neighborhoods as the CENTER for each group. We have a certain status among non Brooklyn jews that can’t explain to an outsider. Bottom line is to orthodox Jews, brooklyn equals Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn and the rest of the world is basically irrelevant. We live in our own little insular bubble, and if we notice any other parts of Brooklyn its because we have to drive through it to get our our neighborhood. So now you know!

  • realbrooklyn

    And Brighton Beach? Residents would sooner say they live in Flatbush (wich is what we call midwood) than Brighton Beach which is a middle class Russian neighborhood, another part of real Brooklyn you guys most likely never heard of:)! (Dissssss)

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