1 Grace Court
1 Grace Court, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002510001 · BIN 3002109
- Year built
- 1925
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 21
- Floors
- 6
- Landmark
- Designated
- Financing
- Commonly reported at 20 percent minimum down; the page presents this as reported and directs confirmation of the board's current requirement
- Washer / dryer
- The house rules acknowledge in-unit laundry equipment alongside the common basement laundry; approval requirements for new installations to be confirmed at offer stage
- Pets
- Dogs and cats permitted under the house rules; privilege revocable by the board if an animal becomes a nuisance
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 2009 house rules revision). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Every street has a best address, and on Brooklyn Heights' quietest street it is the building at the end. Grace Court runs a single block west from Hicks Street and stops at the bluff — no through traffic, no retail, the sandstone tower of Richard Upjohn's Grace Church (1849) at the corner, and the harbor falling away beyond the street's end, which the co-op's own house rules note is a designated fire zone kept clear at the cul-de-sac. 1 Grace Court holds the north side of that terminus, which means its west exposure and its roof deck face the water. The house rules ask residents playing music on the roof to keep it from carrying down "to the highway below" — the BQE runs beneath the bluff — which is the practical evidence of how directly this building sits on the Heights' western edge.
The site itself carries as much history as any apartment lot in the district. This was the seat of the John H. Prentice estate: an 1835 mansion built for merchant Charles Hoyt, which Prentice — a fur merchant and one of the Heights' founding gentry — moved to 1 Grace Court, enlarged by a story, and surrounded with terraced gardens that cascaded toward the harbor. The Center for Brooklyn History's photograph collections preserve it as "Prentice House, One Grace Court." The mansion fell into disrepair by the early 1900s and came down in 1909; in the mid-1920s the present six-story apartment house rose in its place, taking the address and the harbor prospect with it.
The architect was Mortimer E. Freehof, per LPC records, and 1 Grace Court is where his Brooklyn Heights portfolio begins. Over the next four years Freehof designed the Commercial Gothic tower at 130 Clinton Street (1925–26), the large apartment house at 153 Henry Street opposite Love Lane (1928), and the half-timbered co-op at 35 Pierrepont Street (1929). Anyone comparing prewar co-ops in the central and southern Heights is, more often than they realize, choosing among Freehof buildings — and 1 Grace Court is the smallest, quietest, and most dramatically sited of the four.
The cooperative chapter is unusually early. One Grace Court Corporation acquired the property and commenced operations in 1970, per the corporation's audited financial statements — a decade and more before the 1980s conversion wave that produced most Heights co-ops, and the by-laws in The Roebling Research Library carry shareholder amendments dating to 1971. The building has now been tenant-owned for over half a century, and the paper trail reads like it: a resident-controlled board (the amended by-laws require directors and officers to be resident shareholders), audited financials, documented refinancings, and the small governance texture — planting committees, roof-deck reservations posted by the mailboxes — of a genuinely self-governing house.
Architecture and unit composition
Freehof's building puts six stories of brick around an interior courtyard, with three exposures at work: the Grace Court front with its window boxes, the interior court, and the west end above the bluff. The corporation's audited financial statements describe 21 apartments against 4,000 issued shares (3,832 outstanding — the corporation holds treasury stock from a documented 2010 reorganization, when two former superintendent's units were renovated, one sold and one retained as a rental). Public records carry 18 units; aggregate references cite 24; the co-op's own documents are the count we work from. Line-by-line layouts and share allocations are maintained in The Roebling Research Library and shared with clients during diligence.
Interiors follow the mid-1920s Heights template — foyer entries, separated kitchens, prewar ceiling heights — at boutique scale. The building's scarcest asset is orientation: upper-floor west and southwest exposures work the harbor and lower-Manhattan sight lines from the bluff, and the shared roof deck delivers that view to every shareholder. An elevator serves the house (the lobby has a short run of steps, with a building-owned ramp available under the house rules — worth knowing for accessibility planning), and fire escapes and the courtyard reflect the original 1920s life-safety fabric, all of it under Landmarks jurisdiction.
Building operations
One Grace Court Corporation runs as a professionally managed small co-op with a superintendent and an unusually well-documented operating history: audited financial statements across the 2000s show the ordinary course of a stable boutique corporation — laundry income, a 2007 refinancing with a secured credit line, capital spending on apartments and building systems. The 2009-revised house rules are detailed and practical, from move-in elevator protocol to recycling, and they route maintenance complaints in writing through the managing agent with a copy to the board president. Exterior work — windows included — runs under LPC review, as everywhere in the district.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 5, 2025 | 4C | $570,000 |
| Sep 23, 2022 | 6D | $680,000 |
| Oct 4, 2022 | 3C | $600,000 |
| Mar 21, 2022 | 5D | $700,000 |
| Apr 6, 2020 | 3C | $525,000 |
| Jun 5, 2019 | 4C | $550,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00251-0001) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
What to know if you’re buying
The count you underwrite is the co-op's own. Public records say 18 units, references say 24, the audited financials say 21 apartments on 4,000 shares. Price the shares and confirm the allocation for the specific unit.
This is a fifty-plus-year cooperative, not a 1980s conversion. The corporation has operated since 1970, with resident-shareholder governance written into its amended by-laws. Expect a board that knows the building deeply, and prepare a full package.
The roof deck and west exposures are the value story. The harbor view from the bluff is the feature that distinguishes this address from nearly every small co-op in the district; weigh it explicitly in line selection.
Pets are genuinely permitted. Dogs and cats are allowed under the house rules, with the privilege revocable for nuisance — more permissive than much of the Heights' boutique tier, and worth confirming in current form at application.
Check the accessibility and systems details. The lobby steps and elevator-ramp arrangement, the fire-escape fabric, and any open LL11 façade cycle should all be reviewed during diligence.
What to know if you’re selling
Lead with the site and the lineage. The Prentice mansion history, the Freehof attribution, and the end-of-cul-de-sac harbor position are the three facts no competing listing on the street can match; use all of them.
Market the roof deck as a private-view amenity. In a district where boutique co-ops rarely offer any shared outdoor space, a reserved-use harbor-facing deck is a differentiator that photographs and shows.
Price against the quiet-street set, not the corridor. The right comparables are Grace Court, Remsen, and Montague Terrace boutique prewars — not the elevator buildings on the retail spines. Scarcity supports patience on pricing.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 1 Grace Court, also evaluate:
- 2 Grace Court — the 142-apartment prewar co-op across the street; the same cul-de-sac at ten times the scale
- 19 Grace Court — Sugarman & Berger's 1925 co-op on the same block; the closest like-for-like alternative
- 35 Pierrepont Street — Freehof's 1929 nine-story co-op; the same architect with attended-service tradition
- 153 Henry Street — Freehof's 1928 apartment house at Love Lane; the same architect at larger unit count
- 130 Clinton Street — Freehof's 1925–26 tower, converted to a co-op in 1976; the lineage's office-to-residential chapter
- 2 Montague Terrace — boutique prewar co-op on the Heights' other quiet terrace, directly above the Promenade
- 68 Remsen Street — prewar co-op one block north on Remsen's residential run
- 76 Remsen Street — 23-unit boutique co-op nearby at the harbor end of Remsen
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
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