A gallerist moved into a Park Slope brownstone in 2018 and covered a wood-burning fireplace, despite local objections. The home at 838 Carroll Street is a large 1887 Romanesque-revival mansion with 11 bedrooms and seven bathrooms across a 32-foot-wide footprint, including a four-story tower, bay window with parapet, dormer, and double-door entrance with dwarf columns. Inside, the foyer features chevron parquet floors, wood-paneled walls, coffered ceilings, and a twisting grand staircase. Additional ornamentation includes a lion’s paw carved into a built-in settee and staircase finials with spiral details. The previous owners bought the house in 2014, renovated it for two years, and listed it again in 2016, after which the gallerist became interested through an online listing and was drawn to the architecture.
"When the gallerist Lillian Heidenberg moved into her Park Slope brownstone, in 2018, she covered up a wood-burning fireplace - heresy, in some circles. In her defense, there are still 11 others. "I didn't miss the one," she says."
"838 Carroll Street is one of the grandest mansions in a neighborhood known for them with 11 bedrooms and seven bathrooms across a 32-foot-wide footprint. That's double the width of the 16-footers that house the merely rich nearby and a full six feet wider than the neighborhood's most ogled mansion, which is, one might point out, slightly further from the park than No. 838. The house's 1887, Romanesque-revival design includes a four-story tower; a bay window with parapet; a dormer; and a double-door entrance flanked by tiny dwarf columns."
"The foyer is just as impressive with chevron parquet floors, wood-paneled walls, coffered ceilings, and a twisting grand staircase. Look closer, and you'll find more ornamentation: a lion's paw, carved into a built-in settee; staircase finials that each spiral in a slightly different way, like beach shells. "They did an amazing job," Heidenberg says of the last owners, an LLC with an apparent taste for grandeur that bought the place for $3.8 million in 2014."
"The anonymous buyer(s) then spent two years on a renovation that cleaned and modernized the house before listing again in 2016. At the time, Heidenberg had been living at 770 Park Avenue, the Rosario Candela- designed white-glove co-op just blocks from the Frick. She had fantasized about brownstone living but didn't know much about Brooklyn. Then the listing popped up online, and she was intrigued. "Really, I fell in love with the architecture," she says. "I also like real estate.""
Read at Curbed
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