All articles by Emily Nonko

Emily is a Brooklyn-based writer who has covered New York City real estate, architecture and design for Brownstoner, The Wall Street Journal, Dwell and other publications. You can follow her on Twitter @EmilyNonko.
December 8, 2015

Lofty Duplex in Greenpoint Comes With Double Height Ceilings and a Parking Space

149 Huron Street, a 30-unit Greenpoint condo building, was constructed in 2007 and is dominated by big windows and balconies on its facade. There is one unit up for sale in the building, a duplex, and it's asking $1.2 million. Over 985 square feet and two floors you'll find a big, towering window, lots of open space, a flexible floorplan and modern finishes. This is one of the priciest apartments in the entire building, and the history of its price tag says a lot about how much Greenpoint has changed since 2007. The unit sold in 2009 for $560,037 and then was listed in 2012 for $629,000. It looks like it never sold back then, but now it's trying its luck past the $1 million mark.
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December 7, 2015

Lofty Lower East Side Condo Boasts 14 Windows and Four Exposures

This lofty condo apartment at 241 Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side is all about the light. With 14 big windows through the apartment and four different exposures, there's plenty of it coming in. That's paired with three bedrooms, high ceilings, and a flexible layout. Not a bad combination when it comes to a living space. The apartment, located on the top floor of a ten-unit, 1904 pre-war building, is now on the market asking $1.477 million.
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December 4, 2015

Cute Chelsea Studio Maximizes Space With Casement Windows and Private Terrace

This is not your average studio apartment. For starters, it's located inside a brownstone at 405 West 21st Street, in Chelsea. (The five-story property has actually been split into 12 different apartments.) It is also lofted, to create some more space in the otherwise cozy apartment. And a beautiful wall of casement windows brings in tons of light. But the big perk of this studio is that those windows look out onto private outdoor space, which is definitely not a typical offering of a tiny pad. This lovely private patio, which looks out onto the surrounding townhouses, adds an extra 400 square feet. All this—including the fact that it's furnished—makes for quite the pricy studio apartment, at $4,500 a month.
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December 3, 2015

Victoria’s Secret Model Isabeli Fontana Tries to Sell Her Central Park South Pad for $2.65M

A pretty apartment for a pretty person: The Italian-Brazilian Victoria's Secret model Isabeli Fontana (who first appeared in the lingerie catalogue at age 16) is selling her two-bedroom co-op at 120 Central Park South (aka the Berkeley House), according to the Observer. She bought the apartment in 2013 for $1.66 million. Previously, the model has lived at Trump Place on Riverside Boulevard and a condo at 88 Greenwich Street. This apartment, which was totally remodeled by Fontana (is that a self portrait we see?), has some good things going for it. It's got lots of windows and views of the park, tons of closet space and some old-world details.
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December 2, 2015

‘Today’ Show Meteorologist Dylan Dreyer Lists Her Upper West Side Co-op for $862,000

Dylan Dreyer, who you can see giving the weather report on the "Today" show, is selling her cute Upper West Side co-op at 107 West 82nd Street. The weather woman moved in with her husband, "Nightly News" cameraman Brian Fichera, after they got hitched in 2012. And it seems like she really enjoyed this pad–she has told the "Today" show that "I love that the kitchen is open to the rest of the living space” when offering a tour of her apartment. But she's looking for a nice profit, listing it for $862,000 after buying for $580,000. This is a pretty standard one-bedroom, one-bathroom, with an open kitchen that looks out onto the open living and dining area. It's located in the Broadway Corridor of the Upper West Side, as part of a 58-unit co-op over three different brownstone buildings.
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December 1, 2015

You Could Live in This Quirky Pixelated Brooklyn Loft for $5,200/Month

This loft comes from the the former Doehler Die Casting Factory, located at 505 Court Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. The building was constructed in 1913 and the loft was first renovated in the '80s, but since then it's been transformed into something really special. That's because it has undergone a top-to-bottom renovation by SABO Project, who stripped the entire space to reveal the building's historic details and then added a sleek, modern touch. The result is a stunning, airy and bright space that we've drooled over before. Now, it's on the rental market and you could live in the loft yourself for $5,200 a month.
Take a look here
November 30, 2015

A Co-op at This Striking Freestanding House on City Island Asks $600K

You definitely don't see listings like this everyday. This freestanding home comes all the way from City Island, a small Bronx neighborhood that also happens to be an island about a mile and a half long by a half mile wide. At this seaside village (where about 4,500 New Yorkers live), Victorian homes with porches aren't all that rare. Still, despite the fact you can access Manhattan by the 6 train and then the bus, it does feel like this whole area is a secret hideaway in New York City. Although the property at 33 Tier Street is a freestanding home, this listing is for a co-op apartment within the residence. The apartment in question holds two bedrooms, 1,200 square feet, and waterfront views. Plus, residents have access to the dreamy front porch. The asking price? $599,021 with a monthly maintenance of $700.
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November 25, 2015

$40M Penthouse Occupies the Clock Tower Dome of Nolita’s Famed Police Building

Who doesn't love to take a look inside the Police Building, the 1909 Beaux Arts NYPD headquarters converted to condos in 1988? Back then, residents were sure to maintain the building’s fantastic architecture and created varied floor plans with soaring ceilings and open layouts. Today, it's known for its uber-unique apartments. This is the building that brought us the wood-paneled, domed master bedroom and this funky loft with 18-foot ceilings. And now, take a peek inside the 6,000-square-foot penthouse apartment that occupies the building's clock tower dome. This was once the home of Calvin Klein and Steffi Graf, but the current owners pulled off quite an impressive renovation—one that uncovered a secret room. The grand renovation comes with an even grander asking price, a whopping $39.9 million (h/t Curbed). And as you would expect, it is as drool-worthy as can be.
See inside here
November 24, 2015

This One-Bedroom Rental in Carroll Gardens Boasts the Loft Aesthetic

When it comes to square footage, this apartment falls short of a traditional loft, but it's certainly got the aesthetic down, with high ceilings, exposed brick and exposed wood. The one-bedroom unit–which the listing says could be converted to two bedrooms–is located in a brick townhouse at 282 Sackett Street in Carroll Gardens, a neighborhood known for its brownstones, not warehouse buildings. This is a railroad apartment, with the living room, kitchen and bedroom stacked on top of each other. And it is currently on the rental market for a grand total of $3,000 a month.
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November 23, 2015

$1.7M West Village Co-op Feels Prim and Proper

Here's a co-op apartment that has everything in place, prim and proper as can be. It's a one-bedroom, two-bathroom unit that's located on the second floor of a West Village townhouse at 53 Horatio Street. The pre-war brick building, constructed in 1848, also looks pretty proper and stately, without any adornments or flourishes. That is carried to the interior, which has a nice but not extravagant design. The apartment was last listed in 2013 for $1,100,000, then sold soon after for $1,040,000. Two years later, the owners are looking to make a sizable profit with an ask of $1,699,000.
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November 20, 2015

$16M ‘Trophy’ Penthouse Boasts Solarium, Wrap-Around Terrace, and Lots of Color

The listing calls this a "trophy" penthouse, and with all the bells and whistles that come with the apartment, they're not lying (h/t Curbed). The co-op spans the 17th and 18th floors of 400 East 59th Street, a prewar building in Sutton Place built in 1928 and converted in 1981. It's got four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and more outdoor space than you likely thought possible: a wrap-around terrace, a double-height solarium, a terrace off the master bedroom, and a private roof deck. In case you're wondering, that's 1,450 square feet of terrace space total. Oh yeah, there's also a dressing room in the master that's the size of a studio apartment. All this can be yours for a cool $16 million, a huge leap from its last sale in 2011 for a mere $4.35 million.
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November 19, 2015

Have a Picturesque Holiday Inside This Historic, Fully Furnished Park Slope Brownstone

What better way to enjoy the holidays than from a historic, beautifully-furnished brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn? This entire three-bedroom, two-bathroom home is now up for short-term rent, with a minimum stay of five nights. (To stay the month, it'll cost you $12,500.) There's plenty of room to host, with enough space to fit a six-person dining room table. It's also a good location from which to enjoy all of Brooklyn, as it's located two blocks away from Prospect Park and right between the main drags of 5th and 7th Avenues. Twelve-foot tin ceilings, a fancy chef's kitchen, plenty of bedrooms and a leafy Park Slope street–if that sounds like a vacation to you, keep reading.
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November 18, 2015

$575K Inviting Co-op on Riverside Drive Comes With Cast Iron Juliet Balconies

This one-bedroom apartment, now on the market for $575,000, comes from the historic co-op building the Riviera, located at 790 Riverside Drive in Washington Heights. CityRealty's architecture critic Carter Horsley offers a good review of the architecture: "This very distinguished, five-sided, building has a most unusual floor plan with five deep light wells. It was designed by Rouse and Goldstone and erected in 1910 by the Riveria Realty Company in an Italian Renaissance-palazzo style. The 13-story building has a three-story, rusticated limestone base, limestone quoins, and arched windows at its top floor beneath a quite distinctive cornice of multiple arches. There are several very handsome decorative balconies and the building has spacious lobbies." The luxury apartments, which originally came with as many as 10 rooms, were designed with libraries, butlers’ pantries and parquet flooring. Many of the units–like this one–have been chopped up and made smaller, but this apartment retains the historic cast-iron balconies.
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November 17, 2015

This Greenwich Village Co-op, With Exposed Brick and Fireplaces, Is Like a Mini Chateau

This co-op apartment at 7 Gay Street in Greenwich Village packs in a lot of rustic charm for a one-bedroom. Flanked with exposed brick, with four wood-burning fireplaces, you could pretend like you're in a miniature mountain chateau rather than a NYC pad. Although there's only one bedroom, this co-op has been renovated to include a second apartment so it spans a total of 1,000 square feet. It's also a corner unit with both southern and western exposures. In case you're rushing to buy it–hold tight. The owner has only put it up on the rental market for either short- or long-term tenants. It's asking $6,250 a month unfurnished, or $7,000 a month for all the furniture to stay.
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November 16, 2015

This Pretty Townhouse Duplex Overlooks a Bucolic Block of Park Slope

As the listing says, this upper duplex apartment overlooks "the leafy treetops of Park Slope." Located at 127 Park Place, a lovely brownstone and treelined block of the neighborhood, you do get a good view of Brooklyn from the windows. The interior isn't too bad either, with high and detailed ceilings, fireplaces, the original wood floors, and plenty of other original details. There's no outdoor space, but there is potential to build out a roof deck up top. So how much does it cost to buy up half a historic townhouse? For three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, the price tag comes in at $2.19 million. It's high, but not too far off given that full townhouses in the neighborhood can go for $4 million.
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November 15, 2015

Bright and Breezy Three Bedroom Asks $1.4M in Morningside Heights

This is the kind of apartment that you want to be friends with. It's a truly lovely co-op apartment at the prewar building 500 West 111th Street, just south of Columbia University and just west of Morningside Park in the Morningside Heights neighborhood. It's quite large, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It's also got awesomely high ceilings, lots of built-in bookshelves, and big windows that are streaming tons of light in. Another bonus is that the windows look out onto the great Cathedral of St. John the Divine, a local landmark. Of course, such good friends–er, apartments–are hard to come by, especially in such a prime uptown location. The price tag for the co-op is high, asking $1.375 million.
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November 13, 2015

Channing Tatum’s Former Tribeca Townhouse Has Hit the Market for $6.5 Million

This five-story, 3,231-square-foot Tribeca townhouse has quite a story behind it. Located at 155 Duane Street, the 1830s red brick home was allegedly used in the Civil War to make antiseptic soap. Today's owner is W. Robert Curtis, who gained some recognition years ago for suing the neighborhood's star chef David Bouley of ruining his block by dumping trash from his restaurant Bouley Studio. Curtis, who has put the house up for rent anywhere from $18,000 to $35,000 a month, rented this pad to Channing Tatum in the summer of 2012, and now it's on the market for a cool $6.5 million. The two-bedroom home boasts open-steel stairs, the original pine beams and the building's original mechanical hoist, which you can spot pictured above. It was originally used as a live/work space, with the office on the bottom two floors, but the ground floor is now being marketed as potential retail.
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November 12, 2015

This 1890 Park Slope Townhouse Screams ‘Ultra Modern’ Inside and Out

You don't seem 'em like this everyday in Park Slope! This townhouse at 473 11th Street may not look it, but it was built back in 1890. It's undergone a major transformation, both inside and out, by the architecture firm Redtop Architects. The project added extra square feet, brought in lots more light, dramatically opened up the floor plan, and modernized each room. Simply put: It looks nothing like its 1890s past. It's no surprise that historic Park Slope townhouses command some of the highest prices in Brooklyn, but what about the super modern ones? This property will cost you just as much as its older counterparts, with a price tag of $4 million.
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November 10, 2015

A Modern Reno Inside This Modest Clinton Hill Townhouse, Asking $1.8 Million

This Clinton Hill townhouse is looking to stand out— it even has its very own website. Although it's got a modest, albeit historic, three-story facade, a renovation has left its imprint on seemingly every room of the house. The floorplan has been opened up, the staircase rebuilt, and the fixtures replaced by materials imported from Italy. Pretty much everything has a modern touch while the exterior remains well preserved. If you're a townhouse purist it may not be your cup of tea, but you'll have to admit it's unique. It's currently on the market with a price tag of $1.795 million.
See more of it here
November 9, 2015

Furnished Nolita Loft in Moby’s Former Building Will Cost You $12,500 a Month

262 Mott Street is a Nolita condo building that was formerly an 1850s armory. More recently, the building has gained notoriety for its creative loft spaces, with an apartment featuring moveable bookshelf walls and another with translucent partitions. Moby once owned one such space in the building, which he bought in 1996 for $215,750 and then sold for around $2 million last year. This apartment, a two bedroom, feels much more like a loft than Moby's modern pad, with wood beams galore and a nice open "great room." It's being offered as a six-month furnished rental for the not-so-low rent of $12,500 a month. Nobody said living in such a famously creative building–with some awesome furniture to boot–would come cheap.
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November 6, 2015

$4.25M Forest Hills Mansion Has Multiple Personalities

Check out this Tudor mansion at 70 Greenway South in Forest Hills Gardens. This Queens enclave is home to some of the finest–and most magnificent–freestanding Tudor homes in all of New York, and the neighborhood's quiet and winding streets feel way more like a suburb than most of the city. This house, according to the listing, was "awarded First Prize for excellence in design and civic value in 1929." While we couldn't find more details on the award, it sure sounds fancy– there's even a plaque up on the facade. The exterior is really impressive, with inlaid stone, a turret above the entryway, and a highly-pitched roof. You also can't go wrong with a yard and a stone walkway out front, with another yard and two-car garage in back. But inside, this house is having an identity crisis. It's medieval with a hint of...something.
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November 5, 2015

Check Out the Retro Kitchen in This Otherwise Historic Italianate Brooklyn Brownstone

When it comes to historic Brooklyn brownstones, most of them look pretty similar: a beautiful, high-ceilinged parlor floor, moldings, fireplaces, some woodwork and backyards. Over the years, owners have obviously updated the kitchens, but usually it's a run-of-the-mill open kitchen located in the back of the parlor floor. Not so at this brownstone in Fort Greene, at 30 South Portland Avenue. This property is pretty much the creme de la creme of Brooklyn real estate: a well-preserved, spacious brownstone on one of the prettiest blocks of one of the most in-demand neighborhoods. (That is why it's on the market for a whopping $5.25 million.) It also comes with a surprise: a retro kitchen that looks like it's straight out of a 1950s diner!
See it here
November 4, 2015

‘Veronica Mars’ Actor Lists Village Loft Featuring Cast Iron Columns and Double Height Ceilings

Cast iron is prevalent throughout 67 East 11th Street, a Greenwich Village building built in 1868 and converted to a co-op in 1973. Back in the late 19th century, it was home to the James McCreery Dry Goods Store; the facade has beautiful cast iron details like Corinthian columns as well as big arched windows, and this apartment owned by actor Chris Lowell of "Veronica Mars" fame is now on the market for $1.195 million. The unit is a two bedroom, with the master bedroom located in a sleeping loft above the living room. The lofted space allows for 16-foot ceilings and incredible oversized windows.
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November 3, 2015

Three-Family Townhouse Seeks Huge Profit in Bushwick

Brooklyn is one of the shining examples of New York's crazy strong real estate market, where prices seem to have no limit. Case in point: this three-family townhouse in Bushwick, a neighborhood typically known for cheap rents and warehouse loft apartments, that is asking $1.25 million. Sure, this pad—located at 1108 Madison Street, off the Gates Avenue J train—is nice, but that's a lot of money. It's even more surprising to know that the seller purchased it only two years ago, in May of 2013, for $633,000. From $633K to $1.25M in two years...that's Brooklyn real estate for you!
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November 2, 2015

One Bedroom Co-op at the Beekman Hill House Is the Ideal Starter Apartment

Ah, the New York starter apartment. First-time buyers who don't have millions to spend are always on the lookout for the perfect one–something relatively affordable, charming, and not too small. This can especially be a challenge when buyers have prioritized a central Manhattan location. But among the sea of multi-million dollar condos, there's still a decent selection of more affordable one-bedroom co-ops throughout Manhattan, usually in larger prewar buildings. This particular apartment is located at the Beekman Hill House co-op, a 64-unit building built in 1930 at 425 East 51st Street. It's a decently-sized one bedroom with colorful charm, and it was just listed for $725,000.
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