This Cobble Hill Townhouse Rental Is Filled With Historic Charm and Contemporary Cheer
If it’s been a while since your last case of townhouse envy, enter this 3,000-square-foot Cobble Hill classic at 217 Degraw Street, on the rental market for $15,750 a month. This four-story, single-family Gothic Revival-style home on one of those postcard-worthy Brooklyn blocks has that quality that inspires both admiration and bidding wars: It possesses many of its original details–intricate plaster molding, bedroom arches and pocket doors, for example–plus the benefits of a custom renovation that bestowed a modern dream kitchen, a wall of glass patio doors and several coats of personality. Equal parts contemporary cheer and historic charm, these four floors would be hard for any family, fraternal order, sewing circle or small army–assuming they could part with the five-figure monthly outlay–to resist.
The parlor floor is the star as usual when it comes to tall-ceilinged grandeur and historic details. Big bay windows frame the front living room along with a decorative fireplace and plenty of pretty ceiling detail. A cute skull motif and black accent wall run with the whole Gothic Revival thing; (we don’t know what that is in the chandelier, but we’re keeping our hat on). Through a pair of whitewashed pocket doors is another lovely decorative fireplace, a billiards-slash-dining table, and one very bad Santa, making for an impressive, sun-filled, all-season entertaining space.
A rear office overlooks the garden through a wall of windows, and there’s a deck off the back for all-important sunshine breaks during the workday. A powder room and a coat closet keep things convenient. (Stop mocking us, Andy Warhol dog pillow. You get to live here free.)
Down to the garden floor, where the hub of daily life is anchored by a generously-sized and gorgeously-renovated eat-in kitchen with a working fireplace, custom cabinetry, top-of-the-line appliances and a large pantry.
Wall-sized French doors bring the garden indoors and open out onto it. There’s an adjacent cozy dining room/media room, plus a “shower room” and a laundry area on this floor as well, and access to the basement.
It wouldn’t be brownstone Brooklyn without a pretty backyard: Cute swing, gas grill, tiki torches, creeping vines: check, check, check and check.
On the third floor is the treetop-level master bedroom with en suite bath and dressing room. The front room makes a great library/playroom, another large bedroom or–as in this case–both.
More pretty bedrooms on the fourth floor along with an adjacent playroom area. Livened up with accent color, the Wedgewood blue room almost reminds us of Anderson Cooper’s disarmingly lovely historic firehouse parlor.
In this bright white bath, rustic shutters and a painted antique bathtub’s four-footed pun again capture this home’s serious fun intentions.
The home’s location in what longtime residents call South Brooklyn is both old-school and thoroughly gentrified–the gentry being the ones who’ll be paying townhouse-sized rents for a spot just steps from lively Court Street, with some of the city’s best restaurants nearby as well as large and small shops, cafes, parks and photogenic streetscapes along with the convenience of several subway lines and surrounded by more terrific neighborhoods.
[Listing: 271 Degraw Street by Paul Dawson for Corcoran Group]
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Images courtesy of Corcoran Group.
