44 Butler Street

Built in the 1850’s in the Greek Revival style, 44 Butler Street is a grand 25 ft wide brick townhouse with an enviable position in Cobble Hill on a sunny low-traffic block. This gorgeous home retains many historic details, including elegant marble fireplace mantles, tin ceilings, the original staircase, wide plank subfloors, and much more. Originally built as a single-family, 44 Butler Street is currently configured as a 3-family comprising a garden/parlor floor duplex with a cellar and vault, and two floor-through apartments above. It would be easy to adapt 44 Butler Street for use as a 1-family or 2-family townhouse. Zoning allows for the addition of over 800 additional square feet.

Coming home to 44 Butler Street, you’ll ascend a wide stoop and enter into a spacious entry hall with wide plank floors, ceilings that soar close to 11-feet high and light that streams down from a large window on the staircase landing above. The garden/parlor floor duplex features a large parlor with two original black marble fireplaces and a sunny kitchen. The kitchen steps out to a large south-facing terrace perched over a deep and wide backyard. This tranquil oasis from the bustle of the city is a wonderful place to relax, entertain, and enjoy everyday life.

The parlor floor includes a half bath nicely tucked off the staircase that leads to the garden level, where you’ll find three bedrooms, a large bathroom, and a spacious laundry room. In the back glass doors open to a private brick patio.

Upstairs you’ll find two floor-through apartments which are in good condition and ready to be rented. Light streams in all day long thanks to the building’s north-south orientation. Instead of buildings across the street, there’s a playground which provides for stunning unobstructed views of Downtown Brooklyn and tremendous light. The south facing side also gets great light, given the generous depth of the block’s backyards and the low profile of the houses on Douglass Street.

44 Butler Street includes a fun historic feature rarely seen in New York City. Whereas some townhouses will include just a bit of storage space underneath the stoop, 44 Butler Street has steps that lead down to a sprawling approximately 25-foot long vault with a domed ceiling. While it’s impossible to know how various stewards of 44 Butler Street may have used this intriguing space over its 170 + year history, one could easily envision it today as a wine-cellar, workshop, rec room, speak-easy style entertainment area, and much more.

44 Butler Street is close to the renowned restaurants, boutiques, parks and other amenities that have made Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens and Brooklyn Heights famous. Just around the corner on Court Street and Smith Street you’ll find an array of neighborhood favorites including a beloved independent bookstore called Books Are Magic, Poetica Coffee, Clover Club, Levant on Smith, Union Market, the Court Street Pastry Shop and much more. For a quick commute to Manhattan and the rest of the city, the F/G station is just a couple blocks away. The 2, 3, 4, 5, R, A, and C lines are also easily accessible, and the Pier 6 Ferry is nearby at Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Bring your contractor and architect and make this historic Cobble Hill townhouse the backdrop for your next chapter in Brooklyn.