147 Lafayette Avenue

Four stories, six buildings, one lot, roughly 19,200 square feet of building above it, and 21 apartments distributed across the row. What you see from Lafayette Avenue is Mann's 1930s brick — flat-fronted where the stoops used to be, with casement windows and the arched opening that leads to the gardens.

The unit stock reflects what Mann built for. The remodeling produced two-and-a-half-room and four-room apartments, which in the vocabulary of the period means studios-with-alcoves and small two-bedrooms, and the Department of Finance count of 21 apartments across six houses puts roughly three or four to a building. In practice that means floor-through and half-floor plans rather than the awkward carve-ups a single-house conversion generates, and it means party-wall condition matters here in a way it does not in a freestanding apartment building: apartments sit against neighbors on both sides across six structures that were joined by alteration rather than built as one.

The rear garden is the feature to see rather than read about. Mann's model was Sutton Place, which is to say a single shared landscape behind a row of buildings rather than individual fenced yards, and whether a given apartment has access to it, looks onto it, or faces Lafayette Avenue instead is the largest exposure variable in the building.

Exterior work runs through Landmarks. That deserves a specific note here because the protected fabric is unusual: the district recognizes Mann's 1930s intervention, not the 1860s brownstone beneath it, so window replacement is a review item and the casements are part of the character. Any seller with a clean Landmarks file on window or façade work should put it in the deal room.

This is a small self-directed cooperative in six joined nineteenth-century structures, and it should be underwritten as one. Finance's building-class assignment is C6 — a walk-up cooperative — so there is no elevator, and a group this size in Fort Greene runs with a superintendent rather than a staff.

The capital picture follows from the construction history. Six adjoining party-wall buildings under a single corporation means six roofs or one continuous roof plane depending on how the remodeling handled it, six sets of party walls, a masonry envelope refaced in 1934 over structure from 1860, and a shared rear garden with its own drainage and maintenance obligations. FISP cycles apply to the Lafayette Avenue frontage, and any façade work runs through Landmarks first. In a 21-shareholder corporation, that arrives as an assessment rather than as a line item absorbed by scale.

Ask for several consecutive years of financial statements, the reserve position, the underlying mortgage terms, and the board's own account of the roof, the envelope and the garden. Ask specifically whether the six buildings share mechanical systems or run separately, because the answer determines how a boiler replacement is scoped and funded.

Almost nothing about this corporation's governing documents is a public record. There is no offering plan for Lafayette Court in The Roebling Research Library, and the house rules, sublet policy, pet policy, transfer fee and financing minimum are not documented anywhere reviewed for this page. That is not a red flag; it is a small 1980s-era conversion that has never had a reason to publish. It does mean a buyer should request the full package — proprietary lease, by-laws, current house rules, purchase application, and two or three years of financials — before making assumptions about how the building operates.

Recent sales

Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-02102-0062) 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.

You are buying one apartment in a six-building corporation. The tax lot runs 137 through 147 Lafayette Avenue and the shares, board and maintenance are shared across all of it. Read the building as a group, not as an address.

Do not accept a single year built. LPC and Finance say c. 1860 and Italianate; Finance's transfer records say 1931; the apartments date from Mann's 1934 remodeling. All three belong in the file.

Ask about the garden. Mann laid it out on a Sutton Place model and it is the building's only real amenity. Establish whether your apartment has access, a view, or neither.

Request the entire governing package. No offering plan for this cooperative is publicly available, and pets, sublets, transfer fees and financing minimums are undocumented. Get the proprietary lease, by-laws, current house rules and purchase application in writing.

Budget for assessments across six buildings. Twenty-one shareholders, a landmark masonry envelope refaced in the 1930s over 1860s structure, and a shared garden. Capital work here is assessed, not absorbed.

Lead with the Mann story and document it. Six 1860s houses remodeled in 1934 by Horace B. Mann of Mann & MacNeille for Robert Alfred Shaw, refaced in brick with casement windows and a Georgian arched entry, with a communal garden modeled on Sutton Place. That is a listing narrative with a published architectural history behind it.

Name the district and the date. Fort Greene Historic District, designated September 26, 1978. It is the shortest strong sentence available.

Say which house and which exposure, early. Buyers self-select between garden-facing and Lafayette-facing apartments. Making them work it out during a showing costs offers.

Have the diligence package ready before you list. Because nothing about this corporation is public, a seller who can hand over the lease, by-laws, current rules and three years of financials on day one removes the friction that would otherwise slow every offer.

Comp inside the district, at the right scale. Fort Greene and Clinton Hill co-ops of ten to forty units in landmarked buildings, adjusted for the walk-up and for the garden.

If you're considering 147 Lafayette Avenue, also evaluate:

• 149 Lafayette Avenue — the corner building Mann built new alongside this row; ten units, same architect, same year, separate corporation
• 159 Lafayette Avenue — twin 1897 flats buildings run as one co-op a block east; the closest peer for scale and street
• 60 South Oxford Street — ten-unit row-house co-op on a signature district block; the single-building alternative
• 147 South Oxford Street — 21-apartment elevator co-op south of Fulton; same unit count, no district address, elevator access
• 264 Cumberland Street (The Sanctuary) — the district's boutique condominium, for buyers weighing ownership form
• 372 DeKalb Avenue (Clinton Mews) — Clinton Hill's low-rise cooperative alternative