Friday, November 28, 2014

Decked-Out Renovation Gets Top Dollar: 242 Gates Avenue






We see a lot of really nice houses all the time, but 242 Gates Avenue is truly something special.  Just stepping foot inside gets your heart pumping.  This decked-out renovation is bringing one of the biggest townhouse sales numbers ever east of Classon Avenue.  It's crazy to think that not long ago Platinum Members landed basically the identical 17' wide 5-story brownstone two doors down at 238 Gates Avenue for $1.3M - but in nowhere near this condition.  And this year 242 Gates lists for over twice that price, and just closed well above that mark.  Feast your eyes on what $3M looks like these days on the Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy border...













As crazy as it might sound, the pictures don't even do this place justice.  This is about as nifty & stylish a renovation you're gonna see on a 17' wide building, making the most of a narrow-but-deep floorplate and the step-back in the rear.




Wood & steel, copper & stone, brick & plaster, transoms, light and glass dance & intermingle all through-out this house!  Two of the coolest features of this house are two lightwells... one on the garden floor in the dining room of the garden duplex...







And one through the center of the upper-triplex, bringing light through-out the house.  With a wall of frosty-glass on the bathroom side and 'chapel windows' in the shower for lumination with privacy, with a wall clear glass on the hallway side...
 











The rooms and looks don't stop...






















And that's not even all of them!  Of course there's a nice yard...




A shower on the roof terrace...





And even bleacher-style seating on the roof with skyline views...





Most people - including seasoned people in the industry - wouldn't know how to make a house this nice if time and money were no object.  But owner/designer/architect/contractor Eli Fernald tells us this was his first project in NYC, and - together with his team at Ground Architecture & Building, he could do it better & even quicker these days, having learned a lot from handfuls of other successful projects that garnered top dollar in the Clinton Hill & surrounding areas.  When you've got that "money is no object" style and execution on your products, you can land that "money is no object" kind of price.  Ground Architecture & Building these days has turned their attention towards ground-up now too, where he can really explore design ideas with a blank canvas.  But we think that's like Jordan quitting basketball to go play baseball, or Jay-Z retiring with the Black Album in his prime.  That's until Eli showed us what they're doing basically ground-up around the corner





Still, we wanna pull him back into the townhouse game too and get him on the case for Platinum Member pick-ups like 669 St. Marks Avenue and 711 Sterling Place.  If you wanna pimp your ride in this townhouse or development game, Eli should be on your short list.  "This man is MADE;  He's killing all y'all jive turkeys!"


Check out some of his other projects...








Or what's been up to on 44 Monroe...








Or 109 Clifton Place, also currently in contract, presumably way over asking price at a surprising number for its size...






The market's come a long way since the days of 254 Gates Avenue over $2M being a shocker.  And this week we showed you the price per square foot happening at 252 Gates Avenue condos.  But nobody really thought it was time to put $3M on this block until these guys got a hold of a the building.  What'll they do next??



Pro's:  styling & profiling renovated 5-story 2-Family, 5 wood-burning fireplaces, multiple outdoor decks, delivered vacant, 99% of these clowns couldn't outdo it if they tried

Con's:  gone already, 17' wide, $3M cash isn't for everybody, call it Bed-Stuy if you wanna

Ideally:  the house and the price make ya say wow, just wow.


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