138 Pierrepont Street (The Brooklyn Trust Company Building)

The building occupies a through-block site with its principal Montague Street elevation at Clinton, its long flank on Clinton Street, and its Pierrepont Street frontage at the rear — which is where the residential entrance sits, deliberately separated from the banking hall. The structural system is masonry load-bearing walls with steel beams and concrete-encased steel framing, and the section is unusual: a cellar and six levels comprising the ground floor, two mezzanines, and floors 2, 3, and 4. That section is why the Department of Finance counts four stories while the declaration counts six levels, and it is why unit designations run 2A on the first residential floor through 6L and 6M at the top.

The residences are large and few. Twelve run from roughly 2,270 to 3,090 square feet, configured as three-, four-, and five-bedroom apartments; a thirteenth unit is 514 square feet. Ceiling conditions vary meaningfully floor to floor, as they do in any conversion of a building designed around a double-height banking room and its mezzanines, and three of the residences are duplexes. Because the plans vary, check the features and dates of available internal sales before treating them as comparables.

Everything visible from the street is governed twice: by the Landmarks Preservation Commission under the 1996 individual designation, and by the New York Landmarks Conservancy under the 2009 easement, which requires the Conservancy's approval for changes to exterior color, appearance, alteration, or reconstruction, and applies the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation to that review. Window replacement is treated in the easement as maintenance so long as materials, colors, and workmanship substantially match — a meaningful practical carve-out, and one worth confirming before any unit-level window project.

The condominium is small, staffed, and structurally mixed-use. The residential common elements are enumerated tightly in the declaration: a dedicated residential elevator with its shaft and machine room, the Pierrepont Street vestibule, hallway and lobby, the corridors and stairs serving the residences, a ground-floor bicycle storage room, a pet spa, a common washer and dryer, a staff bathroom, and the fourth-floor amenity suite — owners' lounge, teen room, children's room, exercise room, and terrace. A sidewalk lift in the Clinton Street vault handles deliveries and service.

Two structural features deserve a buyer's attention. The first is the commercial unit: it holds the ground-floor banking hall and part of the cellar, it is not part of the residential offering, and residential unit owners have no interest in its rents. Its tenant's lease runs to 2037 with four ten-year options, and the declaration's use restrictions expressly do not bind that lease. Ask how the commercial unit's common-charge share and its consent rights are structured, because in a fourteen-unit condominium with one very large commercial unit, that allocation drives residential budgets.

The second is the plan's sponsor provisions. At the time of the offering the sponsor was not limited in its ability to rent rather than sell unsold units, and was required to sell only fifteen percent to declare the plan effective — a special risk disclosed in the plan itself and one that, a decade on, should be tested against the current ownership roster rather than assumed away. Ask for the sponsor's remaining holdings, the owner-occupancy percentage, and any resulting lender overlay before you rely on financing terms.

Beyond that, the ordinary questions apply with unusual force because the building is a century old and unusually ornate: the current reserve balance, the actual story classification and whether FISP/Local Law 11 applies, the terrace membrane and pavers on the fourth floor, elevator condition, and any Conservancy or LPC filings open on the exterior.

Short-term and transient use: Prohibited outright. No residential unit may be used as a hotel room or suite, for transient or short-term stays, or under any arrangement in which an occupant pays the owner for a short stay.

Leasing: Permitted in the standard condominium form, with the by-laws providing for a board right of first refusal on a lease or purchase and authorizing the board to impose move-in and transfer fees in connection with a sale or lease. Confirm the board's current fee schedule.

Ownership form: Individual, LLC, corporate, partnership, and fiduciary ownership are available in the ordinary condominium manner; pied-à-terre use is not restricted by the declaration.

Flip tax: None established in the offering plan. Confirm whether the board has since adopted a transfer fee.

Working capital: Two months' common charges payable at closing under the plan's sample closing-cost schedule.

Alterations: Board approval required, with the board entitled to charge back architectural, engineering, and legal review costs and to set the days and hours for work. Anything affecting the exterior additionally requires LPC approval and, under the 2009 easement, Conservancy approval.

Pets: The building was built with a ground-floor pet spa as a residential common element, which is the clearest indication of the building's posture. The specific pet rules sit in the condominium's rules and regulations rather than in the declaration — request them in writing.

Recent sales

Recent closings at this building, from The Roebling Research Library. Prices are the transfer amounts recorded with the NYC Department of Finance; apartment-level detail is checked against the building’s own file in The Roebling Research Library before publishing.

Market read. Most recent trades (2025) cleared a median $1,562/sf (floor-adjusted) across 2 sales. Floor-adjusted means each sale is restated to a constant mix of floors, so the figure can differ from the plain median of the sales listed above. Median listing discount 3.5% from the last ask — a recurring negotiation gap worth pricing into any offer or listing strategy.

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00244-7502; each condominium apartment is its own tax lot). Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified in The Roebling Research Library. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price; square footage from recorded condo declarations and offering plans.

Check the scope of each preservation requirement. The individual landmark designation and perpetual Conservancy easement apply to covered exterior work. LP-1906 separately designates the entrance vestibules and elevator alcoves, banking hall, vault-access stairwell and staircase, and specified associated fixtures. Changes can be approved through the applicable LPC and Conservancy processes; confirm the easement's matching-window maintenance exception and the permit route for the proposed work.

Understand the commercial unit before you underwrite the common charges. A bank on a lease to 2037 with four renewal options occupies the ground floor and part of the cellar. Its common-interest allocation and its consent rights shape the residential budget in a building this small.

Test the sponsor and owner-occupancy position. The plan permitted the sponsor to rent rather than sell unsold units and to declare effectiveness at fifteen percent. A decade on, the current roster is a lender question as much as a lifestyle one.

Compare the available internal and neighborhood sales. Thirteen residences include three duplexes and differing floor plans. Use same-building transactions where relevant, with adjustments for area, layout, ceiling height, outdoor space, condition and date, and supplement them with matched neighborhood sales.

Confirm the fourth-floor amenity and terrace maintenance program. Pavers on pedestals over a roof membrane are a known capital item; ask when the membrane was last addressed and what the reserve holds against it.

Lead with York & Sawyer and the interior landmark. The 1996 exterior-and-interior designation and the 2009 Conservancy easement document this property's preservation history; explain the scope of each rather than claiming exclusive status among competing listings.

Quantify the floor plate. Square footage in the 2,300-to-3,100 range is the building's scarcest attribute in this market. State it early and support it with the plan's own schedules.

Frame the bank as an asset. A long-term institutional ground-floor tenant on a lease running to 2037 is a stability story for a mixed-use condominium, and buyers who have been burned by empty retail will hear it.

Set expectations on approvals. Buyers planning renovations should understand the LPC and Conservancy path before contract, not after. Transparency here shortens deals.

If you're considering 138 Pierrepont Street, also evaluate:

• 110 Livingston Street — McKim, Mead & White's 1926 Elks clubhouse and Board of Education headquarters, converted to condominium in 2007; the closest Brooklyn Heights peer in landmark-conversion terms
• 75 Livingston Street — Abraham J. Simberg's 1926 neo-Gothic Chamber of Commerce tower, a cooperative since 1981; the other great Downtown Brooklyn institutional conversion
• 20 Henry Street — the Peaks Mason Mints candy-factory condominium conversion; loft-scale living inside the historic district
• 9 College Place (Love Lane Mews) — the mews condominium conversion on the Heights' interior lanes; boutique scale, different architecture
• 1 Clinton Street (One Clinton) — Marvel Architects' condominium tower above the Brooklyn Heights Library; the new-construction alternative two blocks away
• 166 Montague Street — boutique condominium on the same commercial spine
• 205 Hicks Street — small-scale Brooklyn Heights condominium alternative
• 8 Old Fulton Street (Brooklyn City Railroad Company Building) — the landmarked 1861 building converted to an eleven-unit loft cooperative; the neighborhood's other landmark-conversion address
• 1 Main Street (The Clock Tower) — the Gair Building conversion in DUMBO; the borough's other trophy landmark conversion