1 Pierrepont Street: Review and Ratings

Review of 1 Pierrepont Street by Carter Horsley

This 13-story building at 1 Pierrepont Street is one of the most handsome and elegant mid-rise buildings in the Brooklyn Heights Historic District.  It was erected in 1921 and has 24 co-operative apartments. 

It is one block away from the district's famous promenade overlooking the Lower Manhattan skyline and it is across from a small park at Pierrepont Place. 

The building is also known as 189-203 Columbia Heights where it has its entrance. 

Because many of the buildings across Columbia Heights are low-rise, many apartments in this building have spectacular vistas of the Lower Manhattan skyline, the bay and the Statue of Liberty. 

In his book, "Brooklyn Heights, the Rise, Fall and Rebirth of America's First Suburbs," Robert Furman noted that Gregory Peck owned the A. A. Low House between 1957 and 1960 via his White Fathers Film Foundation, Inc.  He sold it to Darwin and Gladys James that year....It was bruited about the area at the time that landlords were demolishing buildings to avoid paying higher real estate taxes.  Henrik Krogius reports that the owners of the high-rise at 1 Pierrepont Street purchased 222 Columbia Heights, the Cornell-Low House...and demolished it in the 1950s to prevent an apartment building from obstructing their tenants' reviews.  Its site was a sunken garden in the 1960s operated by the Brooklyn Heights Garden Club until it was purchased by Ian Bruce Eichner in 1977....[who would in 1980 erect "a luxurious modernist house...that would utilize the proportions of the old Cornell-Low House.  The community sought a retro design more in keeping with the area, but the [Landmarks Preservation] Commission nevertheless issued a Certificate of Appropriateness." 

That building has a garden at its southern end and it is not an eyesore even if not totally in context with its low-rise neighbors. 

The building is not far from several subway lines and schools and restaurants.

Bottom Line

An elegant pre-war, mid-rise building with some grand apartments and its upper floors have spectacular views of Lower Manhattan at a very prominent site a short block away from the main entrance to the esplanade in Brooklyn Heights.

Description

This brown-brick building has a canopied and arched, limestone entrance with decorative cartouches flanked by two arched openings with three-story-high, limestone window surrounds at either end of its frontage of Pierrepont Street. 

It has a rope quoin at its corner on Pierrepont Street and another above its 10th floor.  

There are two-story-high window surrounds at either end of the 11th and 12th floors. 

There is an attractive high fence on the first floor with sidewalk landscaping.  There is also a good-sized garden on the north side of the building. 

The building has  some discrete air-conditioners. 

Amenities

The building has a full-time doorman, a rooftop solarium with a fireplace for residents, a children's playroom, a laundry, storage, an elevator and permits pets.

Apartments

Penthouse B is a duplex unit whose top floor is setback and has a 93-foot-long-and-9-foot-wide view of the Lower Manhattan skyline and the harbor.  The terrace has a full kitchen and the apartment has four bedrooms and more than 3,600 square feet of interior space and three wood-burning fireplaces.  It has a 14-foot-long entry foyer on the lower level that leads past a 14-foot-wide library to a 24-foot-wide living room with a fireplace that is adjacent to a 20-foot-wide dining room that is next to a 14-foot-wide pantry that leads to a 13-foot-long breakfast room and a 12-foot-wide, windowed kitchen. 

Apartment 8A is a five-bedroom unit that has an 18-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 25-foot-wide living room, a 16-foot-wide study, a 17-foot-wide dining room, and a 18-foot-wide kitchen with two windows, a pantry with a window and a laundry with a window. 

Apartment 9A is a three-bedroom unit with a 13-foot-long entrance gallery that leads to a 23-foot-wide living room with a fireplace that is next to a 15-foot-long dining room an a 17-foot-wide kitchen with an island and two windows. 

Apartment 1B is a three-bedroom unit with a 17-foot-long entry foyer that leads to a 15-foot-long living room with a fireplace, a 15-foot-long dining room and a 13-foot-wide kitchen with two windows.,