After scraping back seven layers of wallpaper and exposing the ocher patina of the original walls, after peeling back the new floors to reveal centuries-old planks and removing the dropped ceiling and the avocado-colored kitchen, Elisabeth Cunnick invited members of a neighborhood association to tour her home, considered one of the oldest in Brooklyn. The reaction was \u2014 to put it mildly \u2014 mixed.<\/p>\n
Some looked admiringly, others in despair, she said of the visitors who traipsed into 25 Cranberry Street, one of the last surviving wood-frame Federal-style rowhouses in Brooklyn Heights.<\/p>\n
Some walls lacked plaster, most lacked paint, the wiring was visible and there was no air-conditioning. It\u2019s not as if Ms. Cunnick lacked the means: The former gallerist and owner of the A\/D gallery in Manhattan, Ms. Cunnick and her former husband bought the house in 1995 for $500,000 by selling off their Andy Warhol drawing. What she had created \u2014 and what not everyone has appreciated \u2014 was a home that is as close as possible to living in the 19th century.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that the walls are cracking. I know there are nails popping up in the floorboards, but I find it absolutely glorious,\u201d said the 70-year-old Ms. Cunnick, who has reluctantly decided to sell the historic home. \u201cI would very much love for there to be someone there who loves the house as much as I do \u2014 and who gets it as it is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The house\u2019s charm is undeniable \u2014 the chalky walls and uneven floors not only have the feel of being from another time, but the house itself is almost completely free of modern materials. There\u2019s almost no wallboard and very little plastic. The house is made of wood and mud, plaster and lime, said Ms. Cunnick, who describes it as \u201clike living in something that breathes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 3,263-square-foot home, listed<\/a> for $4.9 million, went on the market this week \u2014 a month after another rare Federal-style rowhouse, 24 Middagh Street, around the block, went up for sale.<\/p>\n That house is listed for $9.25 million, because it recently underwent a gut renovation, something that the owner of the Cranberry Street property considers an act of violence. \u201cThat\u2019s what fishermen do when they catch a fish, or a deer hunter when they shoot a deer,\u201d said Joan Goldberg, the real estate broker representing the sale of 25 Cranberry.<\/p>\n Beyond their price tags, the two houses share a legendary rivalry: Both claim to be the oldest home in Brooklyn Heights. And as far back as 1889, an article<\/a> in the local newspaper wistfully described the disappearance of the wood-frame homes and speculated on the dates they were built, a mythology that has only grown with the rise of blogs, tour guides, walking maps and competing real estate listings, said Jeremy Lechtzin, an architectural historian.<\/p>\n History books and tour guides have dubbed 24 Middagh the \u201cQueen of Brooklyn Heights.\u201d Like its around-the-block neighbor, it sits inside New York\u2019s first designated historic district, and city records date it to 1829, according to Courtney Clark Metakis, spokeswoman for the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission.<\/p>\n 25 Cranberry has a plaque that says: \u201ccirca 1828.\u201d Yet the real estate listing for the property claims it was built in 1790.<\/p>\n \u201c1790 would make it one of the earliest \u2014 if not the earliest \u2014 Federal-style house in all of New York City. So that would be extraordinary, but not impossible,\u201d said Andrew Berman, the executive director of Village Preservation and one of many architectural historians who cast doubt on the date. Mr. Lechtzin, president of the Brooklyn Heights Association who has done deep research into the deeds of historic homes in the neighborhood, pointed out that the land where both homes sit, originally farmland owned by the Hicks brothers, wasn\u2019t even subdivided until 1806, according to a cadastral map.<\/a><\/p>\n In 1812, the Hicks brothers sold the lot that would become 24 Middagh for $250. In 1821, it resold for $710 \u2014 an increase that may reflect the addition of a house. Similarly, the lot at 25 Cranberry sold for $275 in 1815. In 1827, it and an adjoining lot were sold together for $1,800 \u2014 or around $900 apiece \u2014 again suggesting improvements. Soon after those resales, the Brooklyn directory began listing named residents at each address, indicating the presence of a house, said Mr. Lechtzin.<\/p>\n Mr. Lechtzin\u2019s research led him to find what may actually be the oldest surviving houses in Brooklyn Heights: Two much plainer houses located at 38 and 40 Hicks Street, whose deeds indicate they were each built circa 1810.<\/p>\n Regardless of which house is actually older, what is undisputed is that 25 Cranberry feels like it is out of another time, an aesthetic that Ms. Cunnick has closely guarded.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of my problems has been \u2014 and I\u2019ve known it for years \u2014 I love that house too much. I can\u2019t leave it. I\u2019m wedded to it,\u201d said Ms. Cunnick.<\/p>\n When a pipe burst at her second home in Connecticut, it forced her to spend time there. That gave her \u201ca little gap \u2014 a little window \u2014 and I thought I had better step through it while I can,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cSo maybe this is my time just to open my hands and let go and hope that someone else loves the house as much as I do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After scraping back seven layers of wallpaper and exposing the ocher patina of the original walls, after peeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5462,29552,9,24,55,54,56,578],"class_list":["post-207910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-architecture","tag-brooklyn-heights-brooklyn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}